Unfortunately, if the beds of the Arabat Inn were pretty good, even for travellers of such distinction, the arrangements of the kitchen left much to be desired. Tourists are not numerous in the Taurida: the principal guests at the auberge of Arabat are merchants or salt-buyers, people not difficult to please, who sleep on the hard beds, and eat whatever is put before them.
Seigneur Kéraban and his companions had to put up with a meagre repast—that is to say, a dish of pilaw, the national food, but with more rice than fowl, and more bone than flesh. Besides, the fowl was so old and tough that it nearly resisted and defied Kéraban himself; but the solid molars of the headstrong Turk gained the victory at last, and he did not yield any more than he had ever done.
After this dish a veritable tureen of yaourtz, or curdled milk, came upon the board to assist in the digestion of the pilaw: then some cakes, of a not very appetizing character, called katlamas.
Bruno and Nizib were scarcely as well supplied as their masters, as might be expected. Their jaws would, no doubt, have done justice to the toughest of fowls, but they had not the opportunity to exercise them in that way. The pilaw on their table was substituted by a black substance, something like a thin brick from the chimney-back.
"What is that?" asked Bruno.
"I don't know what they call it," replied Nizib.
"What! you a native of the country, and—"
"I am not a native of the country."
"Well, very nearly—you are a Turk," replied Bruno. "Well, my friend, taste a piece of this dried boot-sole, and tell me what you think of it."
Nizib, always willing, took piece of the said leather sole, and bit it.
"Well?" asked Bruno.
"Well, it is not good, but it is possible to eat it, all the same."
"Yes, Nizib, when one is dying of hunger, and one has no other choice of food."
Then Bruno boldly attacked the dish, like a man who has
