Page:Kennedy, Robert John - A Journey in Khorassan (1890).djvu/57

 cavalry general, possesses revivifying qualities of no mean order, of which we all speedily became living examples, and whilst the seductive beverage was being imbibed, the strains of a sweet-toned barrel-organ, worked by the same genial host, would reach our ears, at one moment in the shape of 'The Old Hundredth,' at another in that of La Fille de Madame Angot,' tunes of these opposite natures succeeding each other with the most laudable and indifferent impartiality.

The European society of Meshed is very small. It consists of General MacLean, Mr. Vice-Consul Thomson, Dr. and Mrs. Woolbert, the Russian Consul-General, M. de Vlassow, with his English-born wife, his secretary, and Mr. Stagno Navarra, of the Indian Government Telegraph Department, who, however, only occasionally resides at Meshed. Madame de Vlassow has a beautifully arranged house, where she and her husband dispense a refined and liberal hospitality to the rare and therefore much-appreciated strangers who appear in Meshed. General MacLean was engaged during our visit in negotiating the purchase of