“Very well, my lord; no one shall accompany us.... What do you think: would you not like a cool sherbet after your rest? And divert yourself with looking at the goods which the travelling merchants from distant foreign lands, who happen to-day to be staying in the diversorium, have to offer for sale? I will have the sherbet prepared and the merchants informed, my lord. And to-night I will lead you through Rhacotis: we will go by ourselves, my lord, and no one shall know anything of our nocturnal expedition.”
Caleb went away; Tarrar drew the curtains aside. Beyond the bedchamber was a pillared portico; and the green shadow of the palm-garden outside fell within doors. Uncle Catullus was still asleep, but Thrasyllus already sat reading his Egyptian guide-books at a table under a palm-tree. The wonderful, fantastic stories of Herodotus charmed the old tutor’s mind, which was not disinclined to fantasy; but Thrasyllus also took pleasure in the more succinct descriptions of the learned Eratosthenes, Ptolemy Evergetes’ librarian, who lived three centuries before and was a noted astronomer, philosopher and geographer. Thrasyllus loved to consult his splendid maps, which had never yet been bettered and which lay spread in heavy parchment on the table before him; and the tutor followed the cinnabar-traced Nile on these maps down to Ethiopia and the mysterious sources of the sacred stream.
Yes, Eratosthenes was the most respectable guide. When he went blind, in his eighty-second year, he starved himself. Thrasyllus honoured him as a martyr of science. But the tutor also consulted Artemidorus and Hypsicrates, for he wished to be well-informed about the country which he was about to visit, that mysterious country of age-old history and colossal art, while also he did not despise the quite modern writings of his contemporary, Strabo: what a contemporary told about a country over the whole of which he had travelled was perhaps most important of all, because of its practical utility and also because of the freshness of the new impressions.
So Thrasyllus sat under his palm-tree at a table strewn with unrolled papyri; more scrolls stood in a case by his side; and his fingers followed the cinnabar-traced Nile. Lucius in the portico smiled in kindly approval. But the travelling merchants, led by Caleb, arrived through the garden. They were Indians, Sabæans, Arabs, Phœnicians; and their slaves toiled under their heavy bales of merchandise, which were slung on pliant sticks over their shoulders. The merchants bent low in salaams before the wealthy Roman, bowed down to the earth, kissed the ground which his foot had trodden, all eager to sell their exotic wares at a profit above the ordinary to so distinguished a traveller. The Phœnicians made their slaves spread out Damascus tapestry, but Lucius looked at it with scorn and the Phœnicians at once rolled up their inferior tapestry. Then, however, they displayed embroidery from Nineveh and Tyre; and Lucius turned a little pale, because he thought of Ilia. It was all very beautiful in hue and very curious in pattern.
“Call Uncle Catullus here,” he said to Tarrar, who was squatting beside him like a faithful little monkey.
Tarrar hastened to Catullus, who thereupon arrived, sleepily rubbing his eyes, in a wide silk indoor simar; his grey hair stood in a tangle around his bald skull.
“Uncle,” said Lucius, aside, “look here, if you please. Those embroideries from Tyre and Nineveh: I want them. Bargain for them.”
For Uncle Catullus knew how to bargain. He began by turning up his nose at the embroideries; and the merchants uttered loud cries of protest and lifted their hands and invoked all the gods. But Uncle Catullus scornfully shook his head and said:
“No, I won’t buy that trash. Show me other things.”
Then the Phœnicians showed gold vessels from Tartessus, but the Arabs offered perfumes and aromatics from Jeddah and Zebid. The Sabæans displayed wonderful amulets, which bring luck and blissful dreams: the Indians showed tame, trained snakes, as domestic pets: the snakes had a small sardonyx encrusted in their heads, where it had grown into their scaly skin, and they danced on the tips of their tails, to the piping of the Indians’ flutes. They were attractive little creatures and did not cost more than one stater apiece, with the ebony casket in which they were kept; and Lucius impatiently bought them at once, partly because Tarrar found them so attractive and grinned where he squatted and looked on while the snakes danced and twisted one among another.