interpreter spoken English with the greatest ease, I should have had
considerable difficulty in understanding and digesting in all its
bearings, the proposition made to me. But before I proceed to the
proposition, I must describe a ceremony which took place previous to
its discussion. I had hardly observed, when first the procession
entered the room, that one of my friend's followers--my friend's
name, as I learned afterwards, was Mahmoud al Ackbar, and I will
therefore call him Mahmoud--that one of Mahmoud's followers bore in
his arms a bundle of long sticks, and that another carried an iron
pot and a tray. Such was the case, and these two followers came
forward to perform their services, while I, having been literally
pressed down on to the sofa by Mahmoud, watched them in their
progress. Mahmoud also sat down, and not a word was spoken while
the ceremony went on. The man with the sticks first placed on the
ground two little pans--one at my feet, and then one at the feet of
his master. After that he loosed an ornamented bag which he carried
round his neck, and producing from it tobacco, proceeded to fill two
pipes. This he did with the utmost gravity, and apparently with
very peculiar care. The pipes had been already fixed at one end of
the stick, and to the other end the man had fastened two large
yellow balls. These, as I afterwards perceived, were mouth-pieces
made of amber. Then he lit the pipes, drawing up the difficult
smoke by long painful suckings at the mouthpiece, and then, when the
work had become apparently easy, he handed one pipe to me, and the
other to his master. The bowls he had first placed in the little
pans on the ground.

During all this time no word was spoken, and I was left altogether
in the dark as to the cause which had produced this extraordinary
courtesy. There was a stationary sofa--they called it there a