untain.

Our dirty boots compared unfavourably with the Hadj's clean, bare feet,
which, as he sat down cross-legged on the white and embroidered cushions,
were hidden underneath his voluminous garments; whereas ours, not to the
manner born, contracted cramp, unless stuck out in an ungainly way.

A gorgeously upholstered bed filled up one corner of the room; a gun hung
on the wall. There was nothing else.

Three little sons of the house and Mr. Bewicke's soldier-servant having
followed us in and seated themselves, preparations for tea--already
waiting, arranged in front of the divans on four brass trays, standing on
four low tables a few inches high--began.

Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli, sitting on his heels in front of his tea-table,
making tea with his thin brown hands, and presiding over it all with true
Oriental dignity, was a veritable Moses or Aaron reincarnated. Women and
men alike mature rapidly in this country, putting on flesh and becoming
matronly and aldermanic without at the same time growing lined or aged: a
wealthy man of twenty-five is portly and slow of movement--the result of
Eastern habits coupled with the climate.

Hadj Mukhtar Hilalli, barely forty years old by his own account, had a
white beard and moustache, no wrinkles, eyes of mild blue and benign
expression, equally guileless and unfathomable.

Talking in Arabic to Mr. Bewicke, he drew the tray close to the low divan
in front of him, saw that his sons provided cushions for our backs, and
proceeded to wash the green tea in a bright nickel pear-shaped teapot,
with water from the great brass urn which stood over a charcoal-burner:
the washed tea was then transferred into a twin teapot, which the Hadj
generously filled with immense lumps of sugar out of a glass dish
standing on a tray by itself, stacked high with great blocks split off
the cone with a hatchet. Heavy with lump sugar, a handful of mint and bay
leaves was also crammed into the little remaining space in the teapot,
the boiling water out of the urn was turned on over all, filling up every
chink, the lid shut down upon the steaming fragrant brew, and the teapot
set back upon the brass tray, the centre of a ring of tiny gilt and
painted glasses.

The eldest son--a boy of fourteen, dressed in red, and wearing a leather
belt embroidered with blue, and a fez-bag fastened thereto to match,
whose head had evidently had its weekly shave that afternoon--lit a lamp
underneath a little incense-burne