Chained by the neck in gangs of twenties the slaves entered the great
Moslem city. John Smith was left at the gate of a house exactly like all
the others in the narrow noisy street. The beauty of an Oriental palace
is inside the walls. Within the blank outer wall of stone and mud-brick,
arched roofs, painted and gilded within, were upheld by slender round
pillars of fine stone--marble, jasper, porphyry, onyx, red syenite,
highly polished and sometimes brought from old palaces and temples in
other lands. Intricate carving in marble or in fine hard wood adorned
the doorways and lattices, and the balconies with their high
lattice-work railings where the women could see into a room below
without being seen. In the courtyards fountains plashed in marble
basins, and from hidden gardens came the breath of innumerable roses. On
floors of fine mosaic were silken many-hued rugs, brought in caravans
from Bagdad, Moussoul or Ispahan, and the soft patter of bare feet,
morocco shoes and light sandals came from the endless vistas of open
arches. A silken rustling and once a gurgle of soft laughter might have
told the Englishman that he was watched, but he knew no more what it
meant than he understood the Arabic mottoes, interwoven with the
decoration of the blue-and-gold walls.
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