116 
A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 
market; and dirty Arabs, in their brown capotes, doing no¬ 
thing at all, and not likely to do any thing for some time; 
and Jewish peddlers and pilgrims, nodding and reading aloud 
from the Talmud, or praying in dark corners; and Moham¬ 
medans of all castes, spreading their mats in the most incon¬ 
venient places, and bowing down toward Mecca, regardless 
of the world and all its prejudices. Some hundreds of stupid 
Turkish soldiers, with heavy faces, half sea-sick, are gathered 
in huge piles on the forecastle deck, or gamble in groups 
about the gangways ; and abaft the break of the quarter-deck 
is a large cross-barred cage, covered over like a tent, filled 
with masked, and black-eyed, laughing, romping Turkish 
women and squalling babies, belonging to the Harems of 
those old gray-bearded Mussulmans close by smoking their 
chiboucks or bobbing at Mecca ; and now and then there 
emerges from the cage an ugly African, who draws her mask 
over her thick lips if you look toward her, with as much co¬ 
quetry as if she thought it would not do to let too much 
beauty be seen at once. Officers without number, mustached, 
gilded, brass-banded, and buttoned to excess, go up stairs and 
down stairs, and smoke cigars about the decks, and never 
seem to be doing any thing but passing the time as pleasantly 
