The
Faithful Steel (Methley's Yorkshire Servant) Stood Aghast For A
Moment At The Sight Of His Master's Luggage Upon The
Shoulders of
these warlike porters, and when at last we began to move up he
could scarcely avoid turning round
To cast one affectionate look
towards Christendom, but quickly again he marched on with steps of
a man, not frightened exactly, but sternly prepared for death, or
the Koran, or even for plural wives.
The Moslem quarter of a city is lonely and desolate. You go up and
down, and on over shelving and hillocky paths through the narrow
lanes walled in by blank, windowless dwellings; you come out upon
an open space strewed with the black ruins that some late fire has
left; you pass by a mountain of castaway things, the rubbish of
centuries, and on it you see numbers of big, wolf-like dogs lying
torpid under the sun, with limbs outstretched to the full, as if
they were dead; storks, or cranes, sitting fearless upon the low
roofs, look gravely down upon you; the still air that you breathe
is loaded with the scent of citron, and pomegranate rinds scorched
by the sun, or (as you approach the bazaar) with the dry, dead
perfume of strange spices. You long for some signs of life, and
tread the ground more heavily, as though you would wake the
sleepers with the heel of your boot; but the foot falls noiseless
upon the crumbling soil of an Eastern city, and silence follows you
still.
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