Syria from the saddle . SYRIA FROM THE SADDLE. him. He was always grateful, and would lay his headmost affectionately against my coat. But as soon asI mounted, amicable relations were suspended and thebusiness of the day begun. My part of it was to reachmy destination; and his was, by dint of every trickhis Oriental brain could devise, to kill me before Igot there. I selected him for my first mount, and took for a sub-stitute a little terra cotta beast with a Roman nose. CHAPTER II. CAFES CHANTANTS IN BEIRUT A PROFESSIONAL STORY-TELLER AND HIS STORY. edly interesting. David piloted me to one o
Syria from the saddle . SYRIA FROM THE SADDLE. him. He was always grateful, and would lay his headmost affectionately against my coat. But as soon asI mounted, amicable relations were suspended and thebusiness of the day begun. My part of it was to reachmy destination; and his was, by dint of every trickhis Oriental brain could devise, to kill me before Igot there. I selected him for my first mount, and took for a sub-stitute a little terra cotta beast with a Roman nose. CHAPTER II. CAFES CHANTANTS IN BEIRUT A PROFESSIONAL STORY-TELLER AND HIS STORY. edly interesting. David piloted me to one of these theevening after my arrival. The place consisted of a single room, one side openon the street; a low bench running about the threeother sides; above, a shelf covered with nargilehs andbottles; while in one corner burned a brazier wherefresh coffee was constantly made. Beside it stood atray of small coffee cups. The room, like most Eastern places of amusement,was utterly without decoration. Such resorts are, per-. ]EIRUT, as the largest and mostEuropean town in Syria, holdsmore places of amusement than j Jerusalem or Damascus. Open-air cafes, where liquor andnargilehs are served on marble-topped tables, are plentiful, andlook like colorless reflections of theParisian boulevard cafes. Thesecivilized resorts offer little induce-ment to foreigners, but the regularcoffee-house patronized by middleand lower class natives is decicl- 23 24 SYBIA FROM THE SADDLE. force, rigidly plain. The Mohammedan religion forbidspictures, and hangings would be ruined by the we reached the cafe, at least forty men wereseated on the long bench, or on stools and mats drawnaround the one chair of the establishment. On thischair sat a striking figure : a tall, slender man dressedeccentrically in a hybrid suit. Red shoes and checked European trousers coveredthe lower half of his body; while a close-fitting scarletvest embroidered with gold thread, white puff-sleeves,shaped like those wor
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