The result of the /Entente
Cordiale/, you may see there, too, aligned in considerable quantities
on the shelves, the products of those great French philanthropists, to
whom indeed our generation does not render sufficient homage for all
the good they have done to its stomach and its head. The reader will
guess that I have named Pernod, Picon and Cusenier.
It may be indeed that the honest fellahs and Nubians of the
neighbourhood, so sober a little while ago, are apt to abuse these
tonics a little. But that is the effect of novelty, and will pass. And
anyhow, amongst us Europeans, there is no need to conceal the fact -
for we do not all make use of it involuntarily? - that alcoholism is a
powerful auxiliary in the propagation of our ideas, and that the
dealer in wines and spirits constitutes a valuable vanguard pioneer
for our Western civilisation. Races, insensibly depressed by the abuse
of our "appetisers," become more supple, more easy to lead in the true
path of progress and liberty.
On this quay of Assouan, so carefully levelled, defiles briskly a
continual stream of fair travellers ravishingly dressed as only those
know how who have made a tour with Cook & Son (Egypt Ltd.). And along
the Nile, in the shade of the young trees, planted with the utmost
nicety and precision, the flower-beds and straight-cut turf are
protected efficaciously by means of wire-netting against certain acts
of forgetfulness to which dogs, alas, are only too much addicted.
Here, too, everything is ticketed, everything has its number: the
donkeys, the donkey-drivers, the stations even where they are allowed
to stand - "Stand for six donkeys, stand for ten, etc." Some very
handsome camels, fitted with riding saddles, wait also in their
respective places and a number of Cook ladies, meticulous on the point
of local colour, even when it is merely a question of making some
purchases in the town, readily mount for some moments one or other of
these "ships of the desert."
And at every fifty yards a policeman, still Egyptian in his
countenance, but quite English in his bearing and costume, keeps a
vigilant eye on everything - would never suffer, for example, that an
eleventh donkey should dare to take a place in a stand for ten, which
was already full.
Certain people, inclined to be critical, might consider, perhaps, that
these policemen were a little too ready to chide their fellow-
countrymen; whereas on the contrary they showed themselves very
respectful and obliging whenever they were addressed by a traveler in
a cork helmet. But that is in virtue of an equitable and logical
principle, derived by them from the high places of the new
administration - namely, that the Egypt of to-day belongs far less to
the Egyptians than to the noble foreigners who have come to brandish
there the torch of civilisation.
In the evening, after dark, the really respectable travellers do not
quit the brilliant dining saloons of the hotels, and the quay is left
quite solitary beneath the stars. It is at such a time that one is
able to realise how extremely hospitable certain of the natives are
become. If, in an hour of melancholy, you walk alone on the bank of
the Nile, smoking a cigarette, you will not fail to be accosted by one
of these good people, who misunderstanding the cause of the unrest in
your soul, offers eagerly, and with a touching frankness, to introduce
you to the gayest of the young ladies of the country.
In the other towns, which still remain purely Egyptian, the people
would never practise such an excess of affability and good manners,
which have been learnt, beyond all question from our beneficent
contact.
Assouan possesses also its little Oriental bazaar - a little
improvised, a little new perhaps; but then one, at least, was needed,
and that as quickly as possible, in order that nothing might be
wanting to the tourists.
The shopkeepers have contrived to provision themselves (in the leading
shops, under the arcades of the Rue de Rivoli) with as much tact as
good taste, and the Cook ladies have the innocent illusion of making
bargains every day. One may even buy there, hung up by the tail,
stuffed with straw and looking extremely real, the last crocodiles of
Egypt, which, particularly at the end of the season, may be had at
very advantageous prices.
Even the old Nile has allowed itself to be fretted and brought up to
date in the progress of evolution.
First, the women, draped in black veils, who come daily to draw the
precious water, have forsaken the fragile amphorae of baked earth,
which had come to them from barbarous times - and which the
Orientalists grossly abused in their picture; and in their stead have
taken to old tin oil-cans, placed at their disposal by the kindness of
the big hotels. But they carry them in the same easy graceful manner
as erstwhile the discarded pottery, and without losing in the least
the gracious tanagrine outline.
And then there are the great tourist boats of the Agencies, which are
here in abundance, for Assouan has the privilege of being the terminus
of the line; and their whistlings, their revolving motors, their
electric dynamos maintain from morning till night a captivating
symphony. It might be urged perhaps against these structures that they
resemble a little the washhouses on the Seine; but the Agencies,
desirous of restoring to them a certain local colour, have given them
names so notoriously Egyptian that one is reduced to silence.
