Salmagundi; or, The whim-whams and opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, esq. [pseud.] and others. By William Irving, James Kirke Paulding and Washington Irving. Printed from the original ed., with a preface and notes by Evert A. Duyckinck.

THE CITY ASSEMBLY. 371
pious orgies." Resolving to conduct myself with that decent
respect, which every stranger owes to the customs of the land in
which he sojourns, I chastised my features into an expression of
sober reverence, and stretched my face into a degree of longitude suitable to the ceremony I was about to witness. Spite of
myself, I felt an emotion of awe stealing over my senses as I
approached the majestic pile. My imagination pictured something similar to a descent into the cave of Dom-Daniel, where
the necromancers of the East are taught their infernal arts. I
entered with the same gravity of demeanor that I would have
approached the holy temple at Mecca, and bowed my head three
times as I passed the threshold. "Head of the mighty Amrou!i" thought I, on being ushered into a splendid saloon,
" what a display is here I surely I am transported to the mansions of the Houris, the elysium of the faithful!"-How tame
appeared all the descriptions of enchanted palaces in our Arabian poetry!-wherever I turned my eyes, the quick glances of
beauty dazzled my vision and ravished my heart; lovely virgins
fluttered by me, darting imperial looks of conquest, or beaming such smiles of invitation, as did Gabriel when he beckoned
our holy prophet to Heaven. Shall I own the weakness of thy
friend, good Muley?-while thus gazing on the enchanted scene
before me, I, for a moment, forgot my country; and even the
memory of my three-and-twenty wives faded from my heart;
my thoughts were bewildered and led astray by the charms of
these bewitching savages, and I sunk, for a while, into that delicious state of mind, where the senses, all enchanted, and all
striving for mastery, produce an endless variety of tumultuous,
yet pleasing emotions. Oh, Muley, never shall I again wonder
that an infidel should prove a recreant to the single solitary wife
allotted him, when, even thy friend, armed with all'the precepts