In Search of an Unknown Race — page 116: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

106 VAN. of fruits as no description of mine can do justice to. But it was not so much the richness and variety of the repast which excited Van’s secret wonder and ad- miration, as the service itself. Now I am perfectly aware that I must speak guard- edly respecting certain features of Itambez, lest this story of Van Briscoe’s be regarded as a fanciful record of impossible fiction. Yet I am forced to mention the display of dishes and plate which graced the table. ‘There were solid silver and solid gold bowls and vases, some of them bearing marks of great antiquity. Cups and plates of the same precious metals, hammered and worked into the quaint- est and strangest of devices, were placed before every guest. There was no glassware, but in its place most beautiful glazed pottery, some as fragile and delicate as the rarest porcelain, others wrought into wonderfully artistic designs, Silent servants in half European garb glided softly to and from the room, the atmosphere of which was cooled by an ever moving punkah suspended above the table, precisely as in an East Indian bungalow. The long, narrow apertures in the stone sides of the room, which served as windows, were curtained on the outside with flowering foliage, from which came strange spicy odors not unlike those of the tube-rose. In fact, the entire surroundings and scene were sug- gestive of an Arabian Nights’ entertainment. From the conversation carried on during the meal, Van learned quite a good deal regarding the govern- ment of the city and province. Thechief executive was Xalaqua the governor. His power was limited by a Eomichbookssco im