and side coming down, so it must be
the right-hand side going up. We plunged into it, and it was the
filthiest place of all. The wind whistled up it and stirred the
garbage. It seemed densely inhabited, for at all the doors there were
groups of people squatting, with their heads covered, though scarcely a
window showed in the blank walls.

The street corkscrewed endlessly. Sometimes it seemed to stop; then it
found a hole in the opposing masonry and edged its way in. Often it was
almost pitch dark; then would come a greyish twilight where it opened
out to the width of a decent lane. To find a house in that murk was no
easy job, and by the time we had gone a quarter of a mile I began to
fear we had missed it. It was no good asking any of the crowd we met.
They didn't look as if they understood any civilized tongue.

At last we stumbled on it--a tumble-down coffee house, with A.
Kuprasso above the door in queer amateur lettering. There was a lamp
burning inside, and two or three men smoking at small wooden tables.

We ordered coffee, thick black stuff like treacle, which Peter
anathematized. A negro brought it, and I told him in German I wanted
to speak to Mr Kuprasso. He paid no attention, so I shouted louder at
him, and the noise brought a man out of the back parts.

He was a fat, oldish fellow with a long nose, very like the Greek
traders you see on the Zanzibar coast. I beckoned to him and he
waddled forward, smiling oilily. Then I asked him what he would take,
and he replied, in very halting German, that he would have a sirop.

'You are Mr Kuprasso,' I said. 'I wanted to show this place to my
friend. He has heard of your garden-house and the fun there.'

'The Signor is mistaken. I have no garden-house.'

'Rot,' I said; 'I've been here before, my boy. I recall your shanty at
the back and many merry nights there. What was it you called it? Oh, I
remember--the Garden-House of Suliman the Red.'

He put his finger to his lip and looked incredibly sly. 'The Signor
remembers that. But that was in the old happy days before war came.
The place is long since shut. The people here are too poor to dance
and sing.'

'All the same I would like to have another look at it,' I said, and I
slipped an English sovereign into his hand.

He glanced at it in surprise and his manner changed. 'The Signor is a
Prince, and I will do his will.' He clapped his hands and the negro
appeared, and at his nod took his