language of signs. Oh, thought we, had it been
any where near Naples that this escapade had conducted us, we might have
done well. Among those pantomimic people the language of the lips
becomes an unimaginative and lazy expedient, by no means necessary to
the uses of communication. Nature, whose voice is one to all, has given
to them such force of gesture, that it must be a very long and difficult
story that they could not tell or understand without words. But poor old
John Turk is a different animal, and can be dealt with only by dialectic
precision. Never had we seen such an exemplification of their incurious,
impassible diathesis as they now presented to our cost. We turned back a
long and admiring gaze at the group as we passed onwards, for truly it
was a most picturesque position. But we had to revert to the present
necessity of finding some lodging, more perhaps on account of the horses
than of ourselves. For us it would have been no great hardship to pass
the night, should need be, on the dry soft turf, beneath the clear sky,
which shone so purely above us that we absolved the neighbourhood from
all suspicion of marshes, which are the only objection to sleeping in
the open air in this country. All looked dry, and clear, and pure. But
our poor horses, who had been beguiled into an effort by the sight of
the town, began now again to droop, and evidently considered us
chargeable with a breach of promise in thus prolonging their labours.
Whither to go we could not tell. A labyrinth of streets lay before us,
and amongst them it was our object to pick out the way to the Armenian
quarter. Turks keep early hours, and but few people were astir in the
streets when we entered, and after our wanderings had continued but a
short time scarcely a soul was to be seen. Now I am prepared to say,
that no desolation is like the desolation of strangeness in a large
city. St. Jerome in the wilderness, or Stylites on his pillar, were not
more lonely than many a poor recluse in our city of two million
inhabitants. And we ourselves would have been infinitely more at ease
had we been called upon to bivouac beyond the sight of human habitation.

Up one street and down another we passed, till we were wearied almost
beyond endurance, and really uneasy for our cattle. We met no one; or if
we did, no one that noticed us. The muffled figure of some woman would
pass by, who, when she saw the gaoors, would draw her veil yet more
closely over her,