Page:Sixteen years of an artist's life in Morocco, Spain and the Canary Islands.djvu/52

Rh and admire in the palace of the Alhambra, at Granada.

During the operation of inspecting the apartments of the family and the wardrobe of the lady, in which we were engaged with no slight degree of interest to myself, and apparently with great gratification to her who exhibited all these riches, one of the crew of black slaves to whom I have already alluded, brought in tea, which she placed on a tiny table of mother-of-pearl, of octagon shape, very elegantly formed, and about six inches from the floor. A round tray of brilliantly-polished brass, engraved with devices similar to those I had observed on the walls, supported the various articles of the tea-service. In the process of preparing of the tea, the first operation was to turn over the contents of the sugar-basin into the tea-pot, in which there was a very weak infusion of the cheering draught. The cups were then filled with the insipid beverage, which we had to gulp down, cupful after cupful, in succession. Between each, however, the lady, eager more completely to gratify her own curiosity respecting my costume, which was as strange to her as hers was to me, entered into a new survey of my apparel, the use of many parts of which she seemed at a loss to understand, and particularly