CHAPTER XLIX.
A Discussion About Scammony
AFTER taking the bath on his arrival at Damascus, having his beard arranged by a barber of distinction, and dressing himself in a fresh white suit, as was his custom when in residence, with his turban of the same colour arranged a little aside, for Baroni was scrupulous as to his appearance, he hired a donkey and made his way to the great bazaar. The part of the city through which he proceeded was very crowded and bustling: narrow streets, with mats slung across, to shield from the sun the swarming population beneath. His accustomed step was familiar with every winding of the emporium of the city; he threaded without hesitation the complicated mazes of those interminable arcades. Now he was in the street of the armourers, now among the sellers of shawls; the prints of Manchester were here unfolded, there the silks of India; sometimes he sauntered by a range of shops gay with yellow papooshes and scarlet slippers, and then hurried by the stalls and shelves stored with the fatal frippery of the East, in which it is said the plague in some shape or other always lurks and lingers. This locality, however, indicated that Baroni was already approaching the purlieus of the chief places; the great population had already much diminished, the brilliancy of the scene much dimmed; there was no longer the swarm of itinerant traders who live by promptly satisfying the wants of the visitors to the bazaar in the shape of a pipe or an ice, a cup of sherbet or of coffee, or a basket of delicious fruit. The passengers were few, and all seemed busy: some Armenians, a Hebrew physician and his page, the gliding phantoms of some winding-sheets, which were in fact women.
Baroni turned into an arcade, well built, spacious, airy, and very neatly fitted up. This was the bazaar of the dealers in drugs. Here, too, spices are sold, all sorts of dye-woods, and especially the choice gums for which Arabia is still celebrated, and which Syria would fain rival by the aromatic juices of her pistachio and her apricot trees.
Seated on what may be called his counter, smoking a nargileh, in a mulberry-coloured robe bordered with fur, and a dark turban, was a middle-aged man of sinister countenance and air, a long hook nose and a light blue eye.
‘Welcome, Effendi,’ he said, when he observed Baroni; ‘many welcomes! And how long have you been at Esh Sham?’
‘Not too long,’ said Baroni; ‘and have you been here since my last visit?’
‘Here and there,’ said the man, offering him his pipe.
‘And how are our friends in the mountains?’ said Baroni, touching the tube with his lips and returning it.