BOOK II

THE PRINCE OF INDIA


CHAPTER I

A MESSENGER FROM CIPANGO


Just fifty-three years after the journey to the tomb of the Syrian
king--more particularly on the fifteenth day of May, fourteen hundred
and forty-eight--a man entered one of the stalls of a market in
Constantinople--to-day the market would be called a bazaar--and
presented a letter to the proprietor.

The Israelite thus honored delayed opening the linen envelope while he
surveyed the messenger. The liberty, it must be remarked, was not a
usual preliminary in the great city, the cosmopolitanism of which had
been long established; that is to say, a face, a figure, or a mode, to
gain a second look from one of its denizens, had then, as it has now, to
be grossly outlandish. In this instance the owner of the stall indulged
a positive stare. He had seen, he thought, representatives of all known
nationalities, but never one like the present visitor--never one so
pinkish in complexion, and so very bias-eyed--never one who wrapped and
re-wrapped himself in a single shawl so entirely, making it answer all
the other vestments habitual to men. The latter peculiarity was more