The barber now entered; for in the hurry of departure I had forgotten
part of my toilette apparatus: but it was evident that I was the first
Frank who had ever been under his razor; for when his operations were
finished, he seized my comb, and began to comb my whiskers backwards,
as if they had formed part of a Mussulman's beard. When I thought I
was done with him, I resumed the conversation, but was speedily
interrupted by something like a loud box on the ear, and, turning
round my head, perceived that the cause of this sensation was the
barber having, in his finishing touch, stuck an ivory ear-pick against
my tympanum; but, calling for a wash-hand basin, I begged to be
relieved from all further ministrations; so putting half a zwanziger
on the face of the round pocket mirror which he proffered to me, he
departed with a "_S'Bogom_," or, "God be with you."
The collector now accompanied me on a walk through the Servian town,
and emerging on a wide space, we discovered the fortress of Shabatz,
which is the quarter in which the remaining Turks live, presenting a
line of irregular trenches, of battered appearance, scarcely raised
above the level of the surrounding country.
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