The tobacco of Macedonia is celebrated far and wide, and vessels
come there from all quarters of the globe to export this article and
distribute it throughout the world. They had, therefore, made
Mohammed proprietor of a large tobacco warehouse, and he had now
been engaged in this business some ten years, and had become a
wealthy merchant. The people called him a happy man, too, and
perhaps be was, for Mohammed seemed to have true domestic happiness
in his wife and children; he conducted no second wife into his
harem. Ada was his only wife, and the sole mistress of his house.
Yes, he was certainly happy in his family; three sons had been born
to him, and he often went out upon the sea with them, and taught
them, in their boats, to command the waves; he also taught them to
handle the gun, and other manly accomplishments. But he never took
the boys to that part of the shore where the entrance to the cave
lay; and the foot of man has never entered it again! The fissure in
the rocks has disappeared, covered with stones.
No one saw Mohammed go to this spot on the evening be fore his
marriage with Ada. No one saw him, as with the strength of a giant
he rolled huge stones to the opening, and piled them up before the
grotto. Nor did any one see him, before he had done this, enter the
grotto with bowed head and folded arms, as though approaching the
holy mosque.
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