O take these purple robes away, Give back my cloak of camels hair, And bear me from this towring pile To where the Black Tents flap i the air. The camels colt with faltring tread, The dog that bays at all but me, Delight me more than ambling mules Than every art of minstrelsy; And any cousin, poor but free, Might take me, fatted ass! from thee.[FN#26]
[p.191] The old man, delighted, clapped my shoulder, and exclaimed, Verily, O Father of Mustachios, I will show thee the black tents of my tribe this year!
At length night came, and we threw ourselves upon our rugs, but not to sleep. Close by, to our bane, was a prayerful old gentleman, who began his devotions at a late hour and concluded them not before dawn. He reminded me of the undergraduate my neighbour at Trinity College, Oxford, who would spout Aeschylus at two A.M. Sometimes the chant would grow drowsy, and my ears would hear a dull retreating sound; presently, as if in self-reproach, it would rise to a sharp treble, and proceed at a rate perfectly appalling. The coffee-houses, too, were by no means silent; deep into the night I heard the clapping of hands accompanying merry Arab songs, and the loud shouts of laughter of the Egyptian hemp-drinkers. And the guards and protectors of the camp were not Charleys or night-nurses.