The Lands of the Saracen | Page 5

Quarantine is durance vile, without even the bread and water. The
guardiano says the agents of the hotel are at the gate, and we can order
from them whatever we want. Certainly; but at their own price, for we
are wholly at their mercy. However, we go down stairs, and the chief
officer, who accompanies us, gets into a corner as we pass, and holds a
stick before him to keep us off. He is now clean, but if his garments
brush against ours, he is lost. The people we meet in the grounds step
aside with great respect to let us pass, but if we offer them our hands,
no one would dare to touch a finger's tip.
Here is the gate: a double screen of wire, with an interval between, so
that contact is impossible. There is a crowd of individuals outside, all
anxious to execute commissions. Among them is the agent of the hotel,
who proposes to fill our bare rooms with furniture, send us a servant
and cook, and charge us the same as if we lodged with him. The
bargain is closed at once, and he hurries off to make the arrangements.
It is now four o'clock, and the bracing air of the headland gives a
terrible appetite to those of us who, like me, have been sea-sick and
fasting for forty-eight hours. But there is no food within the Quarantine
except a patch of green wheat, and a well in the limestone rock. We
two Americans join company with our room-mate, an Alexandrian of
Italian parentage, who has come to Beyrout to be married, and make
the tour of our territory. There is a path along the cliffs overhanging the
sea, with glorious views of Lebanon, up to his snowy top, the
pine-forests at his base, and the long cape whereon the city lies at full
length, reposing beside the waves. The Mahommedans and Jews, in
companies of ten (to save expense), are lodged in the smaller dwellings,
where they have already aroused millions of fleas from their state of
torpid expectancy. We return, and take a survey of our companions in
the pavilion: a French woman, with two ugly and peevish children (one
at the breast), in the next room, and three French gentlemen in the
other--a merchant, a young man with hair of extraordinary length, and a
filateur, or silk-manufacturer, middle-aged and cynical. The first is a

gentleman in every sense of the word, the latter endurable, but the
young Absalom is my aversion, I am subject to involuntary likings and
dislikings, for which I can give no reason, and though the man may be
in every way amiable, his presence is very distasteful to me.
We take a pipe of consolation, but it only whets our appetites. We give
up our promenade, for exercise is still worse; and at last the sun goes
down, and yet no sign of dinner. Our pavilion becomes a Tower of
Famine, and the Italian recites Dante. Finally a strange face appears at
the door. By Apicius! it is a servant from the hotel, with iron bedsteads,
camp-tables, and some large chests, which breathe an odor of the
Commissary Department. We go stealthily down to the kitchen, and
watch the unpacking. Our dinner is there, sure enough, but alas! it is
not yet cooked. Patience is no more; my companion manages to filch a
raw onion and a crust of bread, which we share, and roll under our
tongues as a sweet morsel, and it gives us strength for another hour.
The Greek dragoman and cook, who are sent into Quarantine for our
sakes, take compassion on us; the fires are kindled in the cold furnaces;
savory steams creep up the stairs; the preparations increase, and finally
climax in the rapturous announcement: "Messieurs, dinner is ready."
The soup is liquified bliss; the _cotelettes d'agneau_ are _cotelettes de
bonheur_; and as for that broad dish of Syrian larks--Heaven forgive us
the regret, that more songs had not been silenced for our sake! The
meal is all nectar and ambrosia, and now, filled and contented, we
subside into sleep on comfortable couches. So closes the first day of
our incarceration.
This morning dawned clear and beautiful. Lebanon, except his snowy
crest, was wrapped in the early shadows, but the Mediterranean
gleamed like a shield of sapphire, and Beyrout, sculptured against the
background of its mulberry groves, was glorified beyond all other cities.
The turf around our pavilion fairly blazed with the splendor of the
yellow daisies and crimson poppies that stud it. I was satisfied with
what I saw, and felt no wish to leave Quarantine to-day. Our Italian
friend, however, is more impatient. His betrothed came early to see him,
and we were edified by the great alacrity