The Innocents Abroad — Volume 05 eBook

It grew dark, and they put candles on the tables—­candles set in bright, new, brazen candlesticks.  And soon the bell—­a genuine, simon-pure bell —­rang, and we were invited to “the saloon.”  I had thought before that we had a tent or so too many, but now here was one, at least, provided for; it was to be used for nothing but an eating-saloon.  Like the others, it was high enough for a family of giraffes to live in, and was very handsome and clean and bright-colored within.  It was a gem of a place.  A table for eight, and eight canvas chairs; a table-cloth and napkins whose whiteness and whose fineness laughed to scorn the things we were used to in the great excursion steamer; knives and forks, soup-plates, dinner-plates—­every thing, in the handsomest kind of style.  It was wonderful!  And they call this camping out.  Those stately fellows in baggy trowsers and turbaned fezzes brought in a dinner which consisted of roast mutton, roast chicken, roast goose, potatoes, bread, tea, pudding, apples, and delicious grapes; the viands were better cooked than any we had eaten for weeks, and the table made a finer appearance, with its large German silver candlesticks and other finery, than any table we had sat down to for a good while, and yet that polite dragoman, Abraham, came bowing in and apologizing for the whole affair, on account of the unavoidable confusion of getting under way for a very long trip, and promising to do a great deal better in future!

It is midnight, now, and we break camp at six in the morning.

They call this camping out.  At this rate it is a glorious privilege to be a pilgrim to the Holy Land.

CHAPTER XLII.

We are camped near Temnin-el-Foka—­a name which the boys have simplified a good deal, for the sake of convenience in spelling.  They call it Jacksonville.  It sounds a little strangely, here in the Valley of Lebanon, but it has the merit of being easier to remember than the Arabic name.

“Comelike spirits, so depart.”

“The night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.”

I slept very soundly last night, yet when the dragoman’s bell rang at half-past five this morning and the cry went abroad of “Ten minutes to dress for breakfast!” I heard both.  It surprised me, because I have not heard the breakfast gong in the ship for a month, and whenever we have had occasion to fire a salute at daylight, I have only found it out in the course of conversation afterward.  However, camping out, even though it be in a gorgeous tent, makes one fresh and lively in the morning —­especially if the air you are breathing is the cool, fresh air of the mountains.

I was dressed within the ten minutes, and came out.  The saloon tent had been stripped of its sides, and had nothing left but its roof; so when we sat down to table we could look out over a noble panorama of mountain, sea and hazy valley.  And sitting thus, the sun rose slowly up and suffused the picture with a world of rich coloring.