Had I Known Him To Be The Honest,
True-Hearted Fellow He Was-His Kindness At Meccah Quite Won My Heart-I
Should Not Have Grudged The Small Charity.
[P.173]Nothing more comfortless than our days and nights in the
"George" Inn.
The ragged walls of our rooms were clammy with dirt, the
smoky rafters foul with cobwebs, and the floor, bestrewed with kit, in
terrible confusion, was black with hosts of cockroaches, ants, and
flies. Pigeons nestled on the shelf, cooing amatory ditties the
live-long day, and cats like tigers crawled through a hole in the door,
making night hideous with their caterwaulings. Now a curious goat, then
an inquisitive jackass, would walk stealthily into the room, remark
that it was tenanted, and retreat with dignified demeanour, and the
mosquitos sang Io Paeans over our prostrate forms throughout the
twenty-four hours. I spare the reader the enumeration of the other
Egyptian plagues that infested the place. After the first day's trial,
we determined to spend the hours of light in the passages, lying upon
our boxes or rugs, smoking, wrangling, and inspecting one another's
chests. The latter occupation was a fertile source of disputes, for
nothing was more common than for a friend to seize an article belonging
to another, and to swear by the Apostle's beard that he admired it,
and, therefore, would not return it. The boy Mohammed and Shaykh Nur,
who had been intimates the first day, differed in opinion on the
second, and on the third came to pushing each other against the wall.
Sometimes we went into the Bazar, a shady street flanked with poor
little shops, or we sat in the coffee-house,[FN#16] drinking hot
saltish water tinged with burnt bean, or we prayed in one of three
tumble-down old Mosques, or we squatted upon the pier, lamenting the
want of Hammams, and bathing in the tepid sea.[FN#17] I presently came
to the conclusion that
[p.174]Suez as a "watering-place" is duller even than Dover. The only
society we found, excepting an occasional visitor, was that of a party
of Egyptian women, who with their husbands and families occupied some
rooms adjoining ours. At first they were fierce, and used bad language,
when the boy Mohammed and I,-whilst Omar Effendi was engaged in prayer,
and the rest were wandering about the town,-ventured to linger in the
cool passage, where they congregated, or to address a facetious phrase
to them. But hearing that I was a Hakim-bashi-for fame had promoted me
to the rank of a "Physician General" at Suez-all discovered some
ailments. They began prudently with requesting me to display the
effects of my drugs by dosing myself, but they ended submissively by
swallowing the nauseous compounds. To this succeeded a primitive form
of flirtation, which mainly consisted of the demand direct. The most
charming of the party was one Fattumah[FN#18], a plump-personed dame,
fast verging upon her thirtieth year, fond of a little flattery, and
possessing, like all her people, a most voluble tongue.
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