Page:Eothen, or, Traces of travel brought home from the East by Kinglake, Alexander William.djvu/38

22 stantinople, and he was fearing that our two sick men, and the miserable looks of our whole party, might make us unwelcome at Pera.

Our poor, dear portmanteaus, whose sharp, angular forms had rebelled so rudely against the pack-saddles, were now reduced to soft, pulpy substances, and the things which were in them could plainly be of no immediate use to anybody but a merman, or a river-god; the carpet bags seemed to contain nothing but mere solutions of coats and boots, escaping drop by drop.

We crossed the Golden Horn in a caïque; as soon as we had landed, some wo-begone looking fellows were got together, and laden with our baggage. Then, on we went, dripping, and sloshing, and looking very like men that had been turned back by the Royal Humane Society, as being incurably drowned. Supporting our sick, we climbed up shelving steps, and threaded many windings, and at last came up into the main street of Pera, humbly hoping that we might not be judged guilty of plague, and so be cast back with horror from the doors of the shuddering Christians.

Such was the condition of our party, which fifteen days before had filed away so gaily from the gates of Belgrade. A couple of fevers, and a north-easterly storm, had thoroughly spoiled our looks.

The interest of Mysseri with the house of Giuseppeni was too powerful to be denied, and at once, though not without fear and trembling, we were admitted as guests.