Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/113

Rh Hands, face, garments, beards, everything about them was Isabean colour.

In these days the Levantine steamers exhibit a curious mixture of people, a sort of miniature picture or microcosm of the Levant world. Half the quarter-deck is turned into a hypæthral harem, railed off for the accommodation of the ladies of some great pasha going down to Rhodes or Syria to grind his subjects, or up to Constantinople to bribe his way into advancement or out of a scrape. This chancel is guarded by a row of black eunuchs. The Turkish ladies not having often the chance of being so gazed upon, make the most of the opportunity, and contrive to let the breeze get under the corner of their veils from time to time, recovering the truant folds with a feigned confusion; "et se cupit ante videri." On the opposite side of the quarter-deck are the European and American travellers, with beards in various stages of development. On the other side of the funnel is an unclean mass of deck passengers,—generally a company or two of Turkish troops,—all eating garlic and bread with unanimous breath. Dotted about are grim fanatical-looking Turks, with green turbans and shaved heads, and beards of a severe cut, men of the ancient régime, who would delight to pound a Christian in a mortar and make him into ink to write verses of the Koran with, if they could. Then there are generally two or three German pilgrims, who have begged their way on foot from Cologne to Jerusalem, and are going back with a certificate to show that they have been there, to display in