I was constrained to refuse to eat, for no soul
can leave a paradise wherein it has tasted food. And as I spoke the
walls of the fair hall wherein we sat, which were painted with the
effigies of them that fell at Thermopylae and in Arcadion, wavered and
grew dim, and darkness came upon me.

The first of my senses which returned to me was that of smell, and I
seemed almost drowned in the spicy perfumes of Araby. Then my eyes
became aware of a green soft fluttering, as of the leaves of a great
forest, but quickly I perceived that the fluttering was caused by the
green scarfs of a countless multitude of women. They were "fine women"
in the popular sense of the term, and were of the school of beauty
admired by the Faithful of Islam, and known to Mr. Bailey, in "Martin
Chuzzlewit," as "crumby." These fond attendant nymphs carried me into
gardens twain, in each two gushing springs, in each fruit, and palms, and
pomegranates. There were the blessed reclining, precisely as the Prophet
has declared, "on beds the linings whereof are brocade, and the fruit of
the two gardens within reach to cull." There also were the "maids of
modest glances," previously indifferent to the wooing "of man or ginn."
"Bright and large-eyed maids kept in their tents, reclining on green
cushions and beautiful carpets. About the golden couches went eternal
youths with goblets and ewers, and a cup of flowing wine. No headache
shall they feel therefrom," says the compassionate Prophet, "nor shall
their wits be dimmed." And all that land is misty and fragrant with the
perfume of the softest Latakia, and the gardens are musical with the
bubbling of countless narghiles; and I must say that to the Christian
soul which enters that paradise the whole place has, certainly, a rather
curious air, as of a highly transcendental Cremorne. There could be no
doubt, however, that the Faithful were enjoying themselves
amazingly--"right lucky fellows," as we read in the new translation of
the Koran. Yet even here all was not peace and pleasantness, for I heard
my name called by a small voice, in a tone of patient subdued
querulousness. Looking hastily round, I with some difficulty recognized,
in a green turban and silk gown to match, my old college tutor and
professor of Arabic. Poor old Jones had been the best and the most shy
of university men. As there was never any undergraduate in his time (it
is different now) who wished to learn Arabic, his place had