finishing touch--they spread carpets on the floor! I simply said, "If

you call this camping out, all right--but it isn't the style I am used

to; my little baggage that I brought along is at a discount."

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

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!

494

The Innocents Abroad