We then got among the slipper-makers, and vile work they turned out. We were hesitating between two turnings when an old Jew, with a high lamb’s-wool cap and long black caftan, rather shabby for wear, addressed me in a sort of _lingua Franca_, half Italian, half French, with a sprinkling of Spanish, and inquiring whether I belonged to the frigate in the harbour, offered to supply us with provisions, &c. &c. I declined his services, and he asked us directly to his house to take coffee—as plump a _non sequitur_ as I have met in my travels.
We followed the old man to a very secluded part of the town, stopping a moment by the way to look at the remains of an old fort built by the Genoese in the stout times of Andrea Doria. (Where be their galleys now?) Hajji (so he was called, he said from having been to Jerusalem) stopped at last at the door of a shabby house, and throwing it open with a hospitable smile, bade us welcome. We mounted a creaking stair, and found things within better than the promise of the exterior. One half the floor of the room was raised perhaps a foot, and matted neatly, and a nicely carpeted and cushioned divan ran around the three sides, closed at the two extremities by a lattice-work like the arm of a sofa. The windows were set in fantastical arabesque frames, the upper panes coarsely coloured, but with a rich effect, and the view hence stretched over the Hellespont toward the south, with a delicious background of the valleys about Lampsacus. No palace window looks on a fairer scene. The broad Strait was as smooth as the amber of the old Hebrew’s pipe, and the vines that furnished Themistocles with wine during his exile in Persia, looked of as golden a green in the light of the sunset, as if the honour of the tribute still warmed their classic juices.
The rich Turkish coffee was brought in by an old woman, who left her slippers below as she stepped upon the mat, and our host followed with chibouques and a renewed welcome. A bright pair of eyes had been peeping for some time from one of the chambers, and with Hajji’s permission I called out a graceful creature of fourteen, with a shape like a Grecian Cupidon and a timid sweetness of expression that might have descended to her from the gentle Ruth of Scripture. There are lovely beings all over the world. It were a desert else. But I did not think to find such a diamond in a Hebrew’s bosom. I have forgotten to mention her hair, which was very remarkable. I thought at first it was dyed with henna. It covered her back and shoulders in the greatest profusion, braided near the head, and floating below in glossy and silken curls of a richness you would deny nature had you seen it in a painting. The colour was of the deep burnt brown of a berry, almost black in the shade, but catching the light at every motion like threads of gold. In my life I have seen nothing so beautiful. It was the “hair lustrous and smiling” of quaint old Burton.[13] There was something in it that you could scarce avoid associating with the character of the wearer—as if it stole its softness from some inborn gentleness in her heart. I shall never thread my fingers through such locks again!