man displayed the extreme of impatience at his confinement, and spent hour after hour in vain exhortations to Sidney, to make some endeavours to be released from imprisonment. Failing with Sidney, he had even attempted to move Achmet. It was all useless: Sidney had not gazed on green trees, gardens, and human beings for some days, nor had Achmet smoked a pipe of repose since he had quitted the valley of the Nile; so the one could do nothing but contemplate, and the other nothing but smoke.
In the evening, the incessant volubility of Lascelles Hamilton awakened in Sidney a wish to take a stroll through the town. On proposing this walk to the Albanian guards, they immediately agreed to accompany the travellers, and suggested a visit to the Mosque, which had been a Christian church, and then a sojourn in the principal coffee-house in the bazar. The church, now converted into the principal mosque of Gaza, is said to have been constructed in the fifth century. It is well worth visiting, though there can be no doubt that the coffee-house has an air of much greater antiquity, if the marks of Decay's effacing fingers be a proof of age. The manner adopted by the quarantine of Gaza for exhibiting the enforcement of the sanatory regulations to the whole population, was an excellent illustration of the effects of the influence of public opinion in Turkey.
Next day was occupied in preparing for the journey to Jerusalem. Sidney had brought a letter from Cairo to a Christian Arab, named Elias es Shami, so called because he was a native of Sham el Keber, or the great city of Damascus. This worthy was the consular agent of some one of the European powers, but affected to be consul for all. His house was ornamented with five or six flag-staffs, and from these, on days of public rejoicing, the standards of England and France were displayed at the corners farthest apart. He declared himself, in his Damascene French, consul of all the powers, or, as he phrased it, "Je suis moi, consul, de toutes les potences." And it really did not require this certificate to convince most of his visitors, that, like many of the trading consuls of the Levant, he was somewhat of a gallows bird. In the position in which he was placed, Sidney conceived this worthy consular agent might afford him some advice.
On arriving at the house with the flag-staffs, Achmet was sent in to present the letter. In spite of the quarantine, it was received and read by Elias of Sham without difficulty. But though the consul had no fear of plague before his eyes, he had a strong aversion to hold any intercourse with persons suspected of being spies by the officers of Mohammed Ali, and Ibrahim Pasha. He accordingly positively declined the visit of Sidney, and sent down his vice-consul, a tall youth with lantern jaws, to inform the travellers in the middle of the street, that Mr Elias of Sham, the British consul, could not recognise any traveller in Syria to be an Englishman, who did not wear the English dress on his body, and a round hat on his head. This communication was so completely in the classic style of English diplomacy in the Levant, that Hassan's axiom concerning the sanity of Elchees and Ambassadors, rushed to the recollection of Sidney, and he perceived that even trading consuls felt bound to put a touch of folly in their official communications to vouch for their diplomatic authority.
Rather amused than discomposed by this reception, Sidney bethought himself of another letter he possessed, to a Persian merchant named Ibrahim, and called by Turks Sishinan. Fat Abraham pretended to be Persian consul, so it was proposed to try whether the Mohammedan had more of the trader, and less of the diplomat than his Christian colleague. As the quarantine regulations gave nobody any concern, it was determined to make this visit as imposing as possible. Achmet arranged the procession, and marched before the travellers as dragoman, himself preceded by two Albanian soldiers armed to the teeth; the cook and two more Albanians followed in the rear, and with the greatest dignity, the whole body moved through the bazaar to the shop of Fat Abraham.
