“Ay, ay, so say I,” sang out Charley, in the best accord.
And then, after a few more vigorous strokes from the sculls, propelled by Tom’s muscular arms, the bow of the dinghy stranded on the sandy shore, and the two boys landed in the highest glee, without a trace of the ill-humour and despondency in which they had been apparently plunged not an hour or so before.
Story 2—Chapter II.
The Coffee-Shop in Beyrout.
Pushing past the crowds of busy and idle people, Greeks, Turks, Armenians, Maronites, Arabs, Frenchmen, and a few English, like themselves, who thronged the narrow streets, which were lined on either side with stores built in the American fashion for the disposal of European goods; narrow Eastern shops, and bazaars and caravanserais, hung with carpets, and displaying grapes and figs, and all sorts of fruit in true Oriental style; they made their way towards a Turkish coffee-house that was situated not far from the waterside, and much patronised by those who, like themselves, had to do with ships and seafaring concerns—although, they did not arrive very quickly at their destination, for the time for the noonday halt having passed by, the usual caravans from Damascus and the interior were coming in, long trains of camels, asses, and mules, laden with coffee, raw silk, rhubarb, untanned leather, figs, aromatic gums, and all the varied merchandise that comes through Arabia and Persia to the ports of the Levant; and, consequently, the main thoroughfares were so blocked with these commercial pilgrims from the desert, that it was as much as Tom and Charley could do to get along.
They did it at length, however, by dint of shoving themselves unceremoniously through the lookers-on who congregated to see the caravans pass, taking no notice of the many invocations to Allah to curse them, as “dogs of Christians,” who profaned the sacred presence of the followers of Islam by breathing the same air as themselves; finally reaching the courtyard of Mohammed’s khan, after much jostling and struggling and good-natured expostulation and repartee, enlivened with many a hearty laugh as some donkey driver came to grief with his load, or when a venerable Arab sheikh on a tall dromedary sputtered with rage at finding the way impassable and his dignity hurt.
The Turk who kept the khan, or coffee-house, was a middle-aged man, who had seen a good deal of all sorts of life in knocking about the world, and was so cosmopolitan in his character that he was almost denationalised. He had a round, good-humoured face, that told as plainly as face could tell that he was no ascetic, or rigid Mussulman bound to the edicts of the Koran, but one who liked good living as well as most folk.
Tom’s description of him hit him off exactly; he was decidedly “a jolly old Turk”—nothing more nor less.