Page:Travels & discoveries in the Levant (1865) Vol. 1.djvu/133

Rh kind, such as we should hardly think good enough for an outhouse in England. The wood employed is an inferior sort of deal, imported from the opposite coast of Asia Minor, full of knots, and finished in a rough unsightly manner. The windows have no leads, and come down with a run; but the frames are so exceedingly slight, that this is not so formidable an evil as it would seem to you. They are more like the frames of a cucumber-bed than windows; but they are protected outside by green shutters, which bear all the brunt of the wind.

Now that we have fairly installed ourselves in our barrack, we feel very comfortable, according to our rough notions of comfort. We live in a room with a large table and a bookcase, both of unpainted deal, a pair of rocking-chairs, one on each side of an enormous fireplace, on which the ligna super foco repose, without either fender, grate, or fire-irons. The fuel is olive-wood, split into great logs, which yield a pleasant unctuous blaze. In one corner of the room is a large packing-case, lined with tin: this serves as a store-room, where we keep all manner of household things, locking them up after every meal; for we cannot trust anything in the hands of our one servant, a Mytileniote boy. The house contains neither carpets, curtains, nor sofas.; but the fine climate reconciles us to the loss of much which would be indispensable in Europe. Our great deficiency is wholesome food. I am at present without a cook, having tried and dismissed three since I arrived at Mytilene. Our meals are prepared at the house of my Dragoman, who farms us at so much per diem.