Hadji Achmet was a hardy, powerful,
dare-devil-looking Turk, while Hadji Velli was the perfection of
politeness, and as gentle as a lamb.
My new allies procured me
three donkeys in addition to the necessary baggage camels, and we
started from the pleasant garden of Halleem Effendi on the
evening of the 10th of June for the junction of the Atbara river
with the Nile.
CHAPTER II.
"'Mongst them were several Englishmen of pith,
Sixteen named Thompson, and nineteen named Smith."
DON JUAN.
MAHOMET, Achmet, and Ali are equivalent to Smith, Brown, and
Thompson. Accordingly, of my few attendants, my dragoman was
Mahomet, and my principal guide was Achmet; and subsequently I
had a number of Alis. Mahomet was a regular Cairo dragoman, a
native of Dongola, almost black, but exceedingly tenacious
regarding his shade of colour, which he declared to be light
brown. He spoke very bad English, was excessively conceited, and
irascible to a degree. No pasha was so bumptious or overbearing
to his inferiors, but to me and to his mistress while in Cairo he
had the gentleness of the dove, and I had engaged him at 5l. per
month to accompany me to the White Nile. Men change with
circumstances; climate affects the health and temper; the sleek
and well-fed dog is amiable, but he would be vicious when thin
and hungry; the man in luxury and the man in need are not equally
angelic. Now Mahomet was one of those dragomen who are accustomed
to the civilized expeditions of the British tourist to the first
or second cataract, in a Nile boat replete with conveniences and
luxuries, upon which the dragoman is monarch supreme, a whale
among the minnows, who rules the vessel, purchases daily a host
of unnecessary supplies, upon which he clears his profit, until
he returns to Cairo with his pockets filled sufficiently to
support him until the following Nile season.
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