"Jack Jollytarre."
Then they started for the bazars, which they found to be long and broad, and moderately full of pretty things. The streets were cleaner than in most Eastern towns. The houses bore a family resemblance to each other—a square court-yard in the centre, around the four sides of which the rooms were built, sometimes to the height of three stories, and some of them being quite open to the sun and air of the court-yard, there being, as a rule, no windows on the dark narrow streets. The roofs are generally flat, and the people sleep on them during the hot summer. In fact, while the great heat lasts, the citizens of Bagdad spend the day in the serdaubs, or as we would call them, cellars.
Tom and Mr. Jollytarre in their walk stood gazing into one of these cellars through one of their grated windows.
"'Serdaub,'" read the Lieutenant from his guide-book, which he always carried like a devoted traveller, "'means cold water.' The Bagdadese call their cellars by this name because they keep cold water stored there. In short, these cellars might be called during the hot months the watering-places of Bagdad, when it is too intolerably hot to remain above-ground. But the nights almost always cool off, and then the frequenters of these summer resorts go up to spend their evenings on the roof by way of variety. This I should consider a change decidedly for the better, as venomous reptiles abound in the serdaubs, which do not make very pleasant companions. Besides which, the air is damp and the ventilation bad."
As they walked on, Tom said: "The air above-ground is good enough, though, isn't it?"
"Oh yes, delightful; no better air or climate in the East. The wind is always blowing over the city fresh from the surrounding desert. For six or eight months the climate is as pleasant as in any place on earth. In midwinter it is cold enough to form ice. The spring and autumn are particularly delightful. But the summer sets in early. In May, for instance, there are such swarms of insects as to render life almost insupportable. We are here, however, in the very nick of time—April."
"Such lots of flowers!" commented Tom. "I know what those little yellow flowers are in that garden—crocuses; and those are violets just like ours at home; and did you ever smell anything so sweet as those orange blossoms? That's something I never saw in our garden."
Here Tom and Jollytarre stood stock-still like two girls to stare in at the flowers in the Bagdad gardens, and up at the birds, and turtle-doves, and ring-doves on the mosques and minarets around them.
"There's a fine view from the top of that minaret," said Mr. Jollytarre, pointing to a very tall one in the middle of the city. "Shall we climb it?"
Of course Tom said yes, and off they started.