I created, I fear, a bad impression by refusing to drink with them, and finding their conversation of very little interest, relapsed into silence, at which they were not a little surprised, for the spirit moving them, they grew extraordinarily loquacious, and failed to understand why their merriment was not shared by me. Salim besought me to join them, for, he said, “It creates a bad impression upon your hosts to refuse their drink, for which we live, counting it our only pleasure in a wretched life. Besides, what kind of an Englishman will it be that does not drink, and drink level with the rest?”
I replied that it was no longer considered an accomplishment and sign of good breeding to drink another man under the table, and that popular opinion condemned the practice, and therefore I could not join them; neither could my stomach, unused to alcohol for so long, endure the spirit. Yet he did not desist, and at last, at the risk of seriously offending him, I told him that if the presence of a stranger and a guest who did not drink was repugnant to him and his companions, I would not force my company upon them, at which he became very apologetic and left me in peace, and the dinner arriving just then—many dishes of pilau and baked meats—the discussion closed, and we drew round a table they set, and dipped our fingers into some particularly savoury dishes. Here, again, I was unpopular, for having been used for a long time to eat little more than dry bread and fruit, a diet I found sufficient in every way, I could not eat much of these dishes, and made a meal from the bread that accompanied them, much to the disgust of my hosts, who, like all these sedentary Christians, put away enormous quantities. Unpopularity, however, among such people is of no disadvantage, for it permitted me to say I was tired, and retired to my bench, where I lay smoking and looking up at the stars, thinking, while I listened to the rising voices of the Christians, who were growing more noisy as the drink got into them, of the contrast between them and the Musulman; and rather wishing I had continued as a Musulman, among whom I made and kept good friends, and lived in the reasonable manner possible among people the preservation of whose self-respect was at least a factor in their character.
As the night drew on these creatures began to get drunk, and shouted dirges and ditties in monotonous Arabic, hiccupping and breaking into screams of laughter, an inane and futile gathering of sots. The night was made hideous by their clatter, and, as no one slept till drink overcame him on the ground or couch, it was late before I could sleep, and the last sound I heard was of violent vomiting over the roof edge into the courtyard.
I had caught a cold in the head, a very bad one, too, and in the morning I woke with a strong fever, and crawled to my room out of the sunlight and lay down on my bed, a piece of thin carpet on the bricks. Here I lay all day burning in the heat of both fever and climate. Kirkuk is a place where temperatures at this time of the year are over one hundred and ten degrees in the shade, and that little room, which had no outlet to the air except the door, just stored up the heat reflected from the walls of the caravanserai, and never felt the breeze to cool it.
About sunset the fever left me, and Salim appeared, to ask why I had not come out during the day. He quite refused to believe that there was anything the matter with me, thinking my conduct but a continuation of that of the previous evening. But I induced him to leave me alone at last, and he went away to his araq in dudgeon, and I dozed again.
A COFFEE-HOUSE INCIDENT
So for three days I kept in the room, creeping to the bazaar once a day to buy a piece of bread and some water-melon. The Christians, convinced that I was an unsociable fellow, shunned me, for which I was rather thankful than otherwise, and devoted their time after sunset to that form of amusement which appeared to be their only resource.
The fourth day, the cold and fever were a good deal better, and I bethought me of the coffee-house where they sold warm milk, entered in there, and ordered my drink. This I consumed and paid for, when one came forward with coffee, and would have poured out some of the bitter stuff for me. When I refused he looked astonished, and retired to where the owner of the place was making the nasty beverage, holding a conversation with him, of which, to judge by the glances they cast in my direction, I must be the subject. The owner himself now came forward with coffee and poured out for me, and I again refused, at which he grew wroth.
“Who are you,” he exclaimed, “that comes into a coffee-house and refuses what it serves to its customers? Either take your coffee or go.”
“Why,” I replied, “I drank your milk, and paid for it, must I drink coffee as well? By what right or custom do you force your coffee down your customers’ throats?”