The Entire Project Gutenberg Works of Mark Twain eBook

The blank, unornamented coop had nothing about it of that oriental voluptuousness one reads of so much.  It was more suggestive of the county hospital than any thing else.  The skinny servitor brought a narghili, and I got him to take it out again without wasting any time about it.  Then he brought the world-renowned Turkish coffee that poets have sung so rapturously for many generations, and I seized upon it as the last hope that was left of my old dreams of Eastern luxury.  It was another fraud.  Of all the unchristian beverages that ever passed my lips, Turkish coffee is the worst.  The cup is small, it is smeared with grounds; the coffee is black, thick, unsavory of smell, and execrable in taste.  The bottom of the cup has a muddy sediment in it half an inch deep.  This goes down your throat, and portions of it lodge by the way, and produce a tickling aggravation that keeps you barking and coughing for an hour.

Here endeth my experience of the celebrated Turkish bath, and here also endeth my dream of the bliss the mortal revels in who passes through it.  It is a malignant swindle.  The man who enjoys it is qualified to enjoy any thing that is repulsive to sight or sense, and he that can invest it with a charm of poetry is able to do the same with any thing else in the world that is tedious, and wretched, and dismal, and nasty.

CHAPTER XXXV.

We left a dozen passengers in Constantinople, and sailed through the beautiful Bosporus and far up into the Black Sea.  We left them in the clutches of the celebrated Turkish guide, “Far-away Moses,” who will seduce them into buying a ship-load of ottar of roses, splendid Turkish vestments, and ail manner of curious things they can never have any use for.  Murray’s invaluable guide-books have mentioned ‘Far-away Moses’ name, and he is a made man.  He rejoices daily in the fact that he is a recognized celebrity.  However, we can not alter our established customs to please the whims of guides; we can not show partialities this late in the day.  Therefore, ignoring this fellow’s brilliant fame, and ignoring the fanciful name he takes such pride in, we called him Ferguson, just as we had done with all other guides.  It has kept him in a state of smothered exasperation all the time.  Yet we meant him no harm.  After he has gotten himself up regardless of expense, in showy, baggy trowsers, yellow, pointed slippers, fiery fez, silken jacket of blue, voluminous waist-sash of fancy Persian stuff filled with a battery of silver-mounted horse-pistols, and has strapped on his terrible scimitar, he considers it an unspeakable humiliation to be called Ferguson.  It can not be helped.  All guides are Fergusons to us.  We can not master their dreadful foreign names.