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THE PORT OF THE WILDERNESS on, sherbet is brought in, and then the visitor knows that it is time for him to leave.

Coffee sometimes plays a more serious part in Eastern affairs. Its heavy sweetness disguises varied and deadly poisons. The bacilli of typhoid fever are said, in this scientific generation, to be drunk unsuspectingly by many a venturesome meddler in affairs of state. The death penalty is seldom inflicted in the Turkish Empire. Deposed ministers and irrepressible busybodies and troublesome reformers are merely imprisoned or exiled. Often they are sent to Damascus. Then, shortly, they die of indigestion or heart failure. [ 109 ]