Page:Writings of Oscar Wilde - Volume 03.djvu/131

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THE FISHERMAN AND HIS SOUL. 105

myrrh and little nail-shaped cloves. When one stops to speak to them, they throw pinches of frankincense upon a charcoal brazier and make the air sweet. I saw a Syrian who held in his hands a thin rod like a reed. Grey threads of smoke came from it, and its odour as it burned was as the odour of the pink almond in spring. Others sell silver bracelets embossed all over with creamy blue turquoise stones, and anklets of brass wire fringed with little pearls, and tiger's claws set in gold, and the claws of that gilt cat, the leopard, set in gold also, and ear- rings of pierced emerald, and finger-rings of hollowed jade. From the tea-houses comes the sound of the guitar and the opium-smokers with their white smiling faces look out at the pass- ers-by. "Of a truth thou should'st have been with me. The wine-sellers elbow their way through the crowd with great black skins on their shoulders. Most of them sell the wine of Schiraz, which is as sweet as honey. They serve it in little metal cups and strew rose leaves upon it. In the market-place stand the fruitsellers, who sell all kinds of fruit: ripe figs, with their bruised purple flesh, melons, smelling of musk

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