ABSTRACT
On the third day of our voyage we ought to have come in sight of the coast of Syria, but all the morning we hardly moved, and the wind, which got up at three o'clock, only filled the sail in occasional gulls, then let it fall back again against the mall. The captain did not seem to be greatly perturbed. He divided his leisure between his chess and a kind of guitar with which he always accompanied the same song. In the East everyone has his favourite tune, and repeats it tirelessly from morning till night, until he learns another, newer, one. The slave had learned at Cairo some harem song or other with a continually recurring refrain and a slow and sleepy melody. It consisted, I remember, of the two following lines: " Ya kabibé! sakel no! . . . Ya makmouby! ya sidi!"
