LEBADEA. 153 
couches upon the divans of all apartments in the chap. 
Levant bemg universally placed in the form of a 
GreekU, the manner in which a company is seated 
is invariably the same in every house". It does 
not vary, from the interior of the apartments in 
the Sultans seraglio, to those of the meanest 
subjects in his dominions; the difference con- 
sisting only in the covering for the couches, and 
the decorations of the floor, walls, and windows. 
After this arrangement has taken place, and 
every one is seated cross-legged, the pewter 
bason and ewer are brought in again; and again 
begins the same ceremony of ablution, with the 
same lathering and squirting from all the mouths 
that have been fed. After this, tobacco-pipes 
are introduced ; but even this part of the cere- 
mony is not without its etiquette ; for we having 
declined to use the pipes offered to us, they 
were not handed to the persons who sate next 
to us in the order observed, although the tobacco 
in them were already kindled, but taken out of 
the apartment; others of an inferior quality 
being substituted in lieu of them, to be offered 
to the persons seated below us. There are no 
(2) Hence may be uuderstood what is meant by " holding adivtin," 
as well as the origin of that expression; the members of a Council, or 
of any State assembly, being thus seated. 
