As I appeared during my tramp in Asia Minor. A picture taken by Abdul Razac Bundak, bumboat-man of Beirut
That afternoon we piloted a party of Germans through the labyrinthian bazaars and out across the orange groves to Dog River. Abdul chattered in his pidgin English, and I strove to turn his uncouth speech into the language of the Fatherland. In the days that followed, our “company,” as Abdul styled it, was the busiest in Beirut. The fame of Bundak’s “faranchee secretary” spread abroad. The scribes who sat in their little stands in the market-places were called upon now and then to pen letters in some European language. Hitherto, they had refused such commissions. Now they despatched an urchin to the shop in Custom-House street, before which our “company” was wont to sit dreaming over narghilehs supplied by a neighboring café, and summoned us to some distant corner of the bazaars. The priest in his confessional was never entrusted with more secrets than fell from the lips of the scribes amid the droning of Bundak, the interpreter. Had those men of letters been less indolent, the volume of their business might well-nigh have doubled. But they insisted on exercising their profession after the laggard manner of the East, and ever and anon drifted away into the land of day-dreams with a sentence stranded on their lips. The palm of the left hand was the writing desk to which they were accustomed; it was always with difficulty that I stirred them up to clear a space on their littered stands. They and their fathers before them had always written from right to left; they stared in amazement when I began in the left-hand corner. More than one burst forth in vociferous protest at this unprecedented use of a pen, and long harangues from the senior member of our firm did not always convince them that the result of my labor was more than meaningless scratches. The fees of this new profession were never princely. The scribes themselves received no more than a bishleek for a letter, and must supply the materials. But even from the half of our share I added something each day to the scrap iron in my handkerchief.
When business lagged there were but two resources left to Abdul—to eat or to drink. Let his narghileh burn out before a summons came, and the bumboat-man rose with a yawn and we rambled away through the intricate windings of the bazaars to some tiny tavern, tucked away in an utterly unexpected corner. The keepers were always delighted to be awakened from their siestas by our “company.” While we sat on a log or an upturned basket and sipped a glass of some native concoction which the proprietor placed on the ground—there being no floor—at our feet, Abdul spun long tales of the faranchee world. They were bold forays into the field of fiction, most of them, but with a live faranchee to serve as illustration, the shopkeepers were never critical and listened open-mouthed, after the fashion of all children of the East before a story teller.
There was really no reason why these taverns should not have supplied all our wants during the day, for the “free lunch” system, that has long been credited to America, is indigenous to Beirut. With every drink the keeper served a half-dozen tiny dishes of hazelnuts, radishes, peas in the pod, cold squares of boiled potatoes, and berries and vegetables known only in Syria. But Abdul was gifted with an inexhaustible appetite, and at least once after every transaction he led the way to one of the many eating-shops facing the busiest streets and squares. In a gloomy grotto, the front of which was all door, stood two long tables of the roughest materials, flanked by rougher benches with barely space enough between them for the passage of clients. The proprietor rarely stirred from behind a great block of brick and mortar near the entrance, over which simmered a score of black kettles. I read the bill of fare by raising the covers of each caldron in succession, chose a dish of the least unfathomable mystery, picked up a discus-shaped loaf and a cruse of water from the bench at the entrance, and retreated to the rear. Whatever I chose, it was almost certain to contain mutton. The sheep appears in sundry and strange disguises in the Mohammedan world. The Arabian cook, however, sets nothing over the fire until he has cut it into small pieces, and each dinner was an almost unbroken succession of stews of varying tastes and colors. Each order, whether of meat or vegetables, we ate separately, with a bread-cake.
Abdul rarely concerned himself with the contents of the kettles, for his unrivaled favorite was a dish prepared by running alternately tiny cubes of liver and kidneys on a spit and revolving them over the glowing coals. I, too, should have ordered this delicacy more often had not Abdul, with his incurable “Eengleesh,” persisted in referring to it as “kittens.” I parted from the bumboat-man each evening; for, though his home was roomy enough, he was a true Mohammedan and would never have thought of introducing even his business partner into the same building with his wives. Beds were good and rates low in the native inns. Though we lived right royally in Beirut, my expenses were rarely twenty-five cents a day.
With all its mud and squalor there was something marvelously pleasing about this corner of the Arab world. The lazy droning of its shopkeepers, the roll of the incoming sea, the twitter of birds that spoke of summer and seemed to belie the calendar, above all, the picturesque contrast of orange trees bending under the ripening fruit that perfumed the soft air, with the snowdrifts almost within stone’s throw on the peaks above, lent to the spot a charm unique. For all that, I should not have remained so long in Beirut by choice, for the road was long before me, and to each day I had allotted its portion of the journey. The traveler in the East, however, must learn that he cannot lay plans and expect to hold to them as at home. To the Oriental it is entirely immaterial whether he sets out to-day or to-morrow, and the view point of the Frank is beyond his grasp. Had you planned a departure for Monday and find that some petty obstacle makes it impossible? “Oh! well,” says the native, “Tuesday is as good a day as Monday. Wait until to-morrow.” Does Tuesday bring some new difficulty? The native will repeat his consoling advice just as jauntily as if he had not worn it threadbare the day before. The expression “wasting time” has no meaning whatever to the Oriental. Twenty-four hours does not represent to him one-half the value of one of his miserable copper coins. A certain number of days must run by between his birth and death. What matters it just how he occupies himself during that period? He is, perhaps, a bit happier if a task already planned must be put off, for the postponement reduces the sum-total of exertion of his allotted span, and nothing does the Oriental hate so much as exertion.
The officials of the Porte, imbued with this philosophy of life, were in no haste to examine my papers. Not until my third visit to the consulate did the air of consternation with which the American representative met me at the door inform me that my letter had been returned.
“What the devil did you pass this note as a passport for?” shouted the consul; “Why, man, in ten years I never heard of a man entering Turkish territory without a passport—except one, and he was fined a hundred pounds.”
“Tourist, wasn’t he?” I answered, “I’ve found that workingmen pass more easily.”
“In Europe, perhaps,” said the consul, “but not here. Now don’t venture into the interior until you have a teskereh—a local passport—unless you want to be shipped to one of the Sick Man’s dungeons on the double quick.”