This he did with the utmost gravity, and apparently with
very peculiar care. The pipes had been already fixed at one end of
the stick, and to the other end the man had fastened two large
yellow balls. These, as I afterwards perceived, were mouth-pieces
made of amber. Then he lit the pipes, drawing up the difficult
smoke by long painful suckings at the mouthpiece, and then, when the
work had become apparently easy, he handed one pipe to me, and the
other to his master. The bowls he had first placed in the little
pans on the ground.
During all this time no word was spoken, and I was left altogether
in the dark as to the cause which had produced this extraordinary
courtesy. There was a stationary sofa--they called it there a
divan--which was fixed into the corner of the room, and on one side
of the angle sat Mahmoud al Ackbar, with his feet tucked under him,
while I sat on the other. The remainder of the party stood around,
and I felt so little master of the occasion, that I did not know
whether it would become me to bid them be seated. I was not master
of the entertainment. They were not my pipes. Nor was it my
coffee, which I saw one of the followers preparing in a distant part
of the room. And, indeed, I was much confused as to the management
of the stick and amber mouth-piece with which I had been presented.
With a cigar I am as much at home as any man in the City. I can
nibble off the end of it, and smoke it to the last ash, when I am
three parts asleep.
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