Again, how unlike the Horse-Guards! the room, though somewhat bare of furniture, was gorgeously papered, painted, and decorated, in the florid style of French art; a cut-glass chandelier hung from the centre of the ceiling, and richly-framed mirrors adorned the walls. From the windows the eye travelled over the glorious Bosphorus, with its myriads of shipping, to the Asiatic shore, where beautiful Scutari, with its background of hills and cypresses, smiled down upon the waters now gleaming like a sheet of burnished gold. A low divan, covered with velvet cushions and costly shawls, stretched round three sides of the apartment, and on this divan were seated in solemn conclave the greatest general of the day and the Seraskier or Commander-in-Chief of the Turkish army.
Some knotty point must have been under discussion before I entered, for Omar Pasha's brow was perplexed and clouded, and a dead silence, interrupted only by the bubble of the Seraskier's narghileh, reigned between the two. The latter motioned me courteously to seat myself by the side of my chief; an attendant brought me a spoonful of sweetmeat, a tiny cup of strong, thick coffee, and an amber-tipped chibouque adorned with priceless diamonds, and filled with tobacco such as the houris will offer to the true believer in Paradise. I knew my assistance would soon be required; for although Omar Pasha is a good Turkish scholar, few men save those to whom it is almost a mother-tongue can converse fluently for any length of time with a Turk in his own language: so I smoked in silence and waited patiently till I was wanted.
True to the custom of the country, Omar Pasha resumed the conversation in an indifferent tone, by a polite inquiry after his Excellency's health, "which must have suffered from his exertions in business during the late heats."
To this his Excellency replied, "that he had been bled, and derived great benefit from it; but that the sight of his Highness, Omar Pasha, had done him more good than all the prescriptions of the Hakim."
A long silence, broken only as before; Omar Pasha, who does not smoke, waxing impatient, but keeping it down manfully.
The Seraskier at length remarked, without fear of contradiction, that "his Highness was exceedingly welcome at Constantinople," and that "God is great."
Such self-evident truths scarcely furnished an opening for further comment, but Omar Pasha saw his opportunity, and took advantage of it.
"Tell the Seraskier," said he to me, as being a more formal manner of acknowledging his courtesy, "that his welcome is like rain on a parched soil; that Constantinople is the paradise of the earth, but the soldier ought not to leave his post, and I must return to the army, taking with me those supplies and arrears of pay of which I stand in need."
All this I propounded in the florid hyperbole of the East.
"Assuredly," answered the Seraskier, a stout, sedate, handsome personage, who looked as if nothing could ruffle or discompose him, and was therefore the very man for the place,--"Assuredly, the beard of his Highness overflows with wisdom; there is but one God."