"For example," said I, "you speak two languages."
The figure moved on, seemed to consider a moment and then said slowly, bueno.
"You have two names," I continued; "one for the house and the other for the street; both are good, but the one by which you are called at home is the one which you like best."
The man walked on about ten paces, in the same manner as he had previously done; all of a sudden he turned, and taking the bridle of the burra gently in his hand, stopped her. I had now a full view of his face and figure, and those huge features and Herculean form still occasionally revisit me in my dreams. I see him standing in the moonshine, staring me in the face with his deep calm eyes. At last he said:
"Are you then one of us?"
—George Borrow.
"The Bible in Spain." The World's Classics (Oxford Press).
"Smyrna: First Glimpses of the East"
"I am glad that the Turkish part of Athens was extinct, so that I should not be baulked of the pleasure of entering an Eastern town by an introduction to any garbled or incomplete specimen of one. Smyrna seems to me the most Eastern of all have seen; as Calais will probably remain to the Englishman, the most French town in the world. The jack-boots of the postilions don't seem so huge elsewhere, or the tight stockings of the maid-servants so Gallic. The churches and the ramparts and the little soldiers on them, remain forever impressed upon your memory; from which larger temples and buildings, and whole armies have subsequently disappeared; and the first words of actual French heard spoken, and the first dinner at 'Quillacq's' remain after twenty years as clear as on the first day. Dear Jones, can't you remember the exact smack of the white hermitage, and the toothless old fellow singing 'Largo al factotum?'"
The first day in the East is like that. After that there is nothing. The wonder is gone, and the thrill of that delightful shock, which so seldom touches the nerves of plain men of the world, though they seek for it everywhere. One such looked out at Smyrna from our steamer and yawned without the least excitement, and did not betray the slightest emotion, as boats with real Turks on board came up to the ship. There lay the town with minarets and cypresses, domes and castles; great guns were firing off, and the blood-red flag of the Sultan flaring over the gulf's edge, and as you looked at them with the telescope, there peered out of the general mass a score of pleasant episodes of Eastern life—there were cottages with quaint roofs; silent cool kioska, where the chief of the eunuchs brings down the ladies of the harem. I saw Hassan, the fisherman, getting his nets; and Ali Baba going off with his donkey to the great forest for wood. Smith looked at these wonders quite unmoved; and I was surprised at his apathy; but he had been at Smyrna before. A man only sees the miracle once: though you yearn after it ever so, it won't come again. I saw nothing of Ali Baba and Hassan the next time we came to Smyrna, and had some doubts (recollecting the badness of the inn) about landing at all. A person who wishes to understand France and the East should come in a yacht to Calais or Smyrna, land for two hours, and never afterward go back again.