Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 3.djvu/170

148 148 THE ETRUSCAN VASE

and of Cairo. Turks, Bedouins, Copts, Fellahs, Moghrebins. I drew up a few hasty notes when I was in the quarantine hospital. What infa- mous places they are! I hope none of you fel- lows are nervous about infection! I smoked my pipe calmly in the midst of three hundred plague-stricken people. Ah! Colonel, you would admire the well-mounted cavalry out there. I must show you some superb weapons that I have brought back. I have a djerid which belonged to a famous Mourad Bey. I have a yataghan for you, Colonel, and a khandjar for Auguste. You must see my metchld and hournous and hhaick. Do you know I could have brought back any number of women with me? Ibrahim Pasha has such numbers imported from Greece that they can be had for nothing. . . . But I had to think of my mother's feelings. ... I talked much with the Pasha. He is a thoroughly intelhgent and unprejudiced man. You would hardly credit it, but he knows everything about oiu- affairs. Upon my honour, he knows the smallest secrets of our Cabinet. I gleaned much valuable information from him on the state of parties in France. . . . Just now he is taken up with statistics. He subscribes to aU our papers. Would you beheve it? — ^he is a pro- nounced Bonapartist, and talks of nothing but