The princes of the Houses of Shehaab, Kais, and Assaad, and Abdullah,
the Habeish and the Eldadah, the great Houses of the Druses, the
Djinblat and the Yezbek, the Abuneked, the Talhook, and the Abdel-Malek,
were not of this school. Silently, determinedly, unceasing, unsatiated,
they proceeded with the great enterprise on which they had embarked. If
the two nations were indeed to be united, and form a great whole
under the sceptre of a Shehaab, let not this banquet pass like the
hypocritical hospitality of ordinary life, where men offer what they
desire not to be accepted by those who have no wish to receive. This, on
the contrary, was a real repast, a thing to be remembered. Practice
made the guests accustomed to the porcelain of Paris and the goblets of
Prague. Many was the goodly slice of wild boar, succeeded by the
rich flesh of the gazelle, of which they disposed. There were also
wood-pigeons, partridges, which the falconers had brought down, and
quails from the wilderness. At length they called again for rice, a
custom which intimated that their appetite for meat was satisfied, and
immediately Nubian slaves covered them with towels of fine linen fringed
with gold, and, while they held their hands over the basin, poured sweet
waters from the ewer.
Pages:
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529