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Title: Told in the Coffee House
Turkish Tales

Author: Cyrus Adler
Allan Ramsay

Release Date: December 2, 2009 [EBook #30577]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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TOLD IN THE COFFEE HOUSE

Told in the Coffee House

Turkish Tales

Collected and done into English
by
CYRUS ADLER AND ALLAN RAMSAY

New York
The Macmillan Company
London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.
1898

_All rights reserved_

COPYRIGHT, 1898,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith
Norwood Mass. U.S.A.

PREFACE

In the course of a number of visits to Constantinople, I became much
interested in the tales that are told in the coffee houses. These are
usually little more than rooms, with walls made of small panes of
glass. The furniture consists of a tripod with a contrivance for
holding the kettle, and a fire to keep the coffee boiling. A carpeted
bench traverses the entire length of the room. This is occupied by
turbaned Turks, their legs folded under them, smoking nargilehs or
chibooks or cigarettes, and sipping coffee. A few will be engaged in a
game of backgammon, but the majority enter into conversation, at first
only in syllables, which gradually gives rise to a general discussion.
Finally, some sage of the neighborhood comes in, and the company
appeals to him to settle the point at issue. This he usual