The Greek put on the rich dress of a merchant captain of his own people,
the black coat, thickly embroidered with gold, the breeches of dark blue
cloth, the almost transparent linen shirt, open at the throat. A large
blue cap of silk and cloth was set far back on his head, showing all the
bony forehead, and his coal-black beard and shaggy hair had been combed
as smooth as their shaggy nature would allow. He wore a magnificent
belt fully two hands wide, in which were stuck three knives of
formidable length and breadth, in finely chased silver sheaths. His
muscular legs were encased in leathern gaiters, ornamented with gold and
silver, and on his feet he wore broad turned-up slippers from
Constantinople. The dress was much the same as that which the Turks had
found there a few years earlier, and which they soon amalgamated with
their own. It set off the captain's vast breadth of shoulder and massive
limbs, and as he stepped into his hired boat the idlers at the
water-stairs gazed upon him with an admiration of which he was well
aware, for besides being very splendidly dressed he looked as if he
could have swept them all into the canal with a turn of his hand.
Without saying whither he was bound he directed the oarsman through the
narrow channels until he reached the shallow lagoon.
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