was really not bad: and the nonchalant rogue-humour of his countenance
did not belie his alliance to that large family, which has produced
"so many blackguards, but never a single blockhead."

Dinner was now announced. F----'s wife, relieved of her child, acted
as first waitress. The fare consisted mostly of varieties of fowl,
with a pilaff of rice, in the Turkish manner, all decidedly good; but
the wine rather sweet and muddy. When I asked for a glass of water, it
was handed me in a little bowl of silver, which mine hostess had just
dashed into a jar of filtered lymph. Dinner concluded, the party rose,
each crossing himself, and reciting a short formula of prayer;
meanwhile a youthful relation of the house stood with the
washing-basin and soap turret poised on his left hand, while with the
right he poured on my hands water from a slender-spouted tin ewer.
Behind him stood the hostess holding a clean towel with a tiny web of
silver thread running across its extremities, and on my right stood
the ex-diners with sleeves tucked up, all in a row, waiting their turn
at the wash-hand basin.

After smoking a chibouque, I took my leave; for I had promised to
spend the afternoon in the house of a Swiss, who, along with the agent
of the steam-boat company and a third individual, made up the sum
total of the resident Franko-Levantines in Roustchouk.

A gun fired in the evening warned me that the steamer had arrived;
and, anxious to push on for Servia, I embarked forthwith.