" He is not young — his hair is gray ; but I should think that he has
twenty years yel in his body."

The description given me by my informant answered very well for
Thompson ; but I knew that there were too many Christian prisoners in
the desert, who were supposed by their friends to have been lost at sea,
to feel much confidence in finding him in the slave at Marbash. Who-
ever he was, however, he was evidently some one demanding my services,



236 KALOOLAH.
and I at once resolved to visit him, and, if possible, purchase him of his
barbarous masters.
Returning through the narrow and filthy streets, to the door that
opened into the little court in front of my house, I was struck with the
appearance of a ragged and squalid figure that accosted me for alms. A
few woollen tatters hung about his person, which was thickly bestudded
with sores ; a brown rag was tied around his black, bullet head, and the
ends brought down so as partially to defend his eyes, which were disgust-
ingly inflamed. His form was emaciated, and he walked with a feeble
and tottering gait. His age was about thirty. Such figures are common
enough in any Mohammedan town, but there was something in this
fellow's appearance that at once arrested my attention. There was a
familiar look about him, and there was a melanchol}' twinkle at the bottom
of his dark gray eye, that spoke of a soul not yet broken down by the
frowns of fortune, or driven into the Mussulman's usual refuge — a stupid
indifference to life, with its miseries and its pains.
