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Then there is the spice-market, with its pungentand exotic smells; and the food-market, where you can buy everything you need for the most sumptuous dinner, or sit in a tiny restaurant with porters and apprentices and eat your humble bread and cheese. The dye-market, the pottery-market and the carpenters' market lie elsewhere in the maze of vaulted streets which honeycomb this bazaar. Every here and there, a doorway gives a glimpse of a sunlit courtyard, perhaps before a mosque or a caravanserai , where camels lie disdainfully chewing their hay, while the great bales of merchandise they have carried hundreds of miles across the desert lie beside them.
再往前走便是香料市場，這里充滿各種濃烈的異香奇味;接下來是食品市場，在這里，你可以買到豪華酒宴上所需的任何山珍海味，也可以與徒工、腳夫一道坐進小飯館里去吃那不能登大雅之堂的面包和奶酪。集市里有棚頂的街巷縱橫交錯，有如一座迷宮，鱗次櫛比地坐落其間的有印染市場、陶器市場和木器市場。隨便走到哪兒，你都有可能透過某個門洞瞥見一個灑滿陽光的庭院，那也許是個清真寺的院子，也許是個商旅客棧的院子。在那兒，總會有幾頭駱駝旁若無人地臥著嚼草料，而在駱駝的身邊則總是堆放著它們穿越沙漠，從幾百英里以外的地方馱運而來的大捆大捆的貨物。
Perhaps the most unforgettable thing in the bazaar, apart from its general atmosphere, is the place where they make linseed oil. It is a vast, sombre cavern of a room, some thirty feet high and sixty feet square, and so thick with the dust of centuries that the mudbrick walls and vaulted roof are only dimly visible. In this cavern are three massive stone wheels, each with a huge pole through its centre as an axle. The pole is attached at the one end to an upright post, around which it can revolve, and at the other to a blind-folded camel, which walks constantly in a circle, providing the motive power to turn the stone wheel. This revolves in a circular stone channel, into which an attendant feeds linseed. The stone wheel crushes it to a pulp, which is then pressed to extract the oil.The camels are the largest and finest I have ever seen, and in superb condition – muscular, massive and stately.
除了其給予人的總體印象外，集市中最令人難忘的地方恐怕要算是榨亞麻籽油的作坊了。那是一間約三十英尺高、六十英尺見方的屋子，空間闊大，但光線幽暗，猶如洞穴一般。其拱形屋頂及四面的泥磚墻壁因厚厚地覆蓋著數百年積下的灰塵而變得模糊難辨。屋內有三個大石磙，每個石磙上都有一根粗木桿從中心穿過，作為磙軸，磙軸的一端與一根立柱相連，使石磙可以繞立柱作旋轉運動，另一端則套在一頭蒙著眼罩的駱駝身上，通過駱駝不停地繞圈子走動來帶動石磙旋轉。石磙沿著一個環形石槽作圓周運動，石槽旁邊有一人專門負責往槽里裝亞麻籽。亞麻籽先由石磙碾成漿，然后再拿去榨油。油坊的駱駝是我見過的駱駝中最大最好的，而且體格健壯無比--肌肉發達，身軀偉岸，氣宇軒昂。
The pressing of the linseed pulp to extract the oil is done by a vast ramshackle apparatus of beams and ropes and pulleys which towers to the vaulted ceiling and dwarfs the camels and their stone wheels. The machine is operated by one man, who shovels the linseed pulp into a stone vat, climbs up nimbly to a dizzy height to fasten ropes, and then throws his weight on to a great beam made out of a tree trunk to set the ropes and pulleys in motion. Ancient girders girders creak and groan , ropes tighten and then a trickle of oil oozes oozes down a stone runnel into a used petrol can. Quickly the trickle becomes a flood of glistening linseed oil as the beam sinks earthwards, taut and protesting, its creaks blending with the squeaking and rumbling of the grinding-wheels and the occasional grunts and sighs of the camels.
榨油工序是由一套搖搖欲墜的機械裝置來完成的。該裝置由大梁、纜索和滑輪組合而成，猶如一座高塔聳立在屋中，上端直與拱形屋頂相接。相形之下，油坊里的駱駝和石磙便顯得矮小起來。這套裝置是由一個人操作的。他先將亞麻籽漿鏟入一只大石缸里，繼而動作利索地爬上令人頭暈目眩的高處系牢纜索，然后全身使勁壓在一根用樹干做成的粗大的橫梁上，帶動纜索的滑輪裝置運轉。古木大梁壓得嘎吱作響，纜索開始繃緊，接著便見一滴滴的油沿著一條石槽流入一只廢舊汽油桶里。隨著大梁越壓越低，纜索越繃越緊，大梁的嘎吱聲，石磙的轆轆聲，以及駱駝不時發出的咕嚕咕嚕的呼吸聲和嘆息聲響成一片，榨出的油也很快地由涓滴細流變成了一股晶瑩發亮、奔騰不止的洪流。
