In Return For My Compliance, He Presented Me With Great Plenty Of
Provisions, And Desired To See Me Again In The Morning.
I accordingly
attended, and found him sitting upon his bed.
He told me he was sick; and
wished to have a little blood taken from him; but I had no sooner tied up
his arm, and displayed the lancet, than his courage failed; and he begged
me to postpone the operation till the afternoon, as he felt himself, he
said, much better than he had been, and thanked me kindly for my
readiness to serve him. He then observed that his women were very
desirous to see me, and requested that I would favour them with a visit.
An attendant was ordered to conduct me; and I had no sooner entered the
court appropriated to the ladies, than the whole seraglio surrounded me:
some begging for physic, some for amber; and all of them desirous of
trying that great African specific, _blood-letting_. They were ten or
twelve in number, most of them young and handsome, and wearing on their
heads ornaments of gold, and beads of amber.
They rallied me with a good deal of gaiety on different subjects;
particularly upon the whiteness of my skin, and the prominency of my
nose. They insisted that both were artificial. The first, they said, was
produced when I was an infant, by dipping me in milk; and they insisted
that my nose had been pinched every day, till it had acquired its present
unsightly and unnatural conformation.
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