The Only Article Of Canteen Description Was A Zemzemiyah, A Goat-Skin Water-Bag, Which, Especially When New, Communicates To Its Contents A Ferruginous Aspect And A Wholesome, Though Hardly An Attractive, Flavour Of Tanno-Gelatine.

This was a necessary; to drink out of a tumbler, possibly fresh from pig-eating lips, would have entailed a certain loss of reputation.

For bedding and furniture I had a coarse Persian rug-which, besides being couch, acted as chair, table, and oratory-a cotton-stuffed chintz-covered pillow, a blanket in case of cold, and a sheet, which did duty for tent and mosquito curtains in nights of heat.[FN#12] As shade is a convenience not always procurable, another necessary was a huge cotton umbrella of Eastern make, brightly yellow, suggesting the idea of an overgrown marigold. I had also a substantial housewife, the gift of a kind relative, Miss Elizabeth Stisted; it was a roll of canvas, carefully soiled, and garnished with needles and thread, cobblers' wax, buttons, and other such articles. These things were most useful in lands where tailors abound not; besides which, the sight of a man darning his coat or patching his slippers teems with pleasing ideas of humility. A dagger,[FN#13] a brass inkstand and pen-holder

[p.25]stuck in the belt, and a mighty rosary, which on occasion might have been converted into a weapon of offence, completed my equipment. I must not omit to mention the proper method of carrying money, which in these lands should never be entrusted to box or bag. A common cotton purse secured in a breast pocket (for Egypt now abounds in that civilised animal, the pick-pocket!), contained silver pieces and small change.[FN#14] My gold, of which I carried twenty-five sovereigns, and papers, were committed to a substantial leathern belt of Maghrabi manufacture, made to be strapped round the waist under the dress. This is the Asiatic method of concealing valuables, and one more civilised than ours in the last century, when Roderic Random and his companion "sewed their money between the lining and the waist-band of their breeches, except some loose silver for immediate

[p.26]expense on the road." The great inconvenience of the belt is its weight, especially where dollars must be carried, as in Arabia, causing chafes and discomfort at night. Moreover, it can scarcely be called safe. In dangerous countries wary travellers will adopt surer precautions. [FN#16]

A pair of common native Khurjin, or saddle-bags, contained my wardrobe; the bed was readily rolled up into a bundle; and for a medicine chest[FN#17] I bought a pea-green box with red and yellow flowers, capable of standing falls from a camel twice a day.

[p.27]The next step was to find out when the local steamer would start for Cairo, and accordingly I betook myself to the Transit Office. No vessel was advertised; I was directed to call every evening till satisfied. At last the fortunate event took place: a "weekly departure," which, by the bye, occurred once every fortnight or so, was in orders for the next day. I hurried to the office, but did not reach it till past noon-the hour of idleness. A little, dark gentleman-Mr. Green-so formed and dressed as exactly to resemble a liver-and-tan bull-terrier, who with his heels on the table was dosing, cigar in mouth, over the last "Galignani," positively refused, after a time,-for at first he would not speak at all,-to let me take my passage till three in the afternoon. I inquired when the boat started, upon which he referred me, as I had spoken bad Italian, to the advertisement. I pleaded inability to read or write, whereupon he testily cried Alle nove! alle nove!-at nine! at nine! Still appearing uncertain, I drove him out of his chair, when he rose with a curse and read 8 A.M. An unhappy Eastern, depending upon what he said, would have been precisely one hour too late.

Thus were we lapsing into the real good old East-Indian style of doing business. Thus Anglo-Indicus orders his first clerk to execute some commission; the senior, having "work" upon his hands, sends a junior; the junior finds the sun hot, and passes on the word to a "peon;" the "peon" charges a porter with the errand; and the porter quietly sits or doses in his place, trusting that Fate will bring him out of the scrape, but firmly resolved, though the shattered globe fall, not to stir an inch.

The reader, I must again express a hope, will pardon the length of these descriptions,-my object is to show him how business is carried on in these hot countries. Business generally. For had I been, not Abdullah the Darwaysh, but a rich native merchant, it would have been

[p.28]the same. How many complaints of similar treatment have I heard in different parts of the Eastern world! and how little can one realise them without having actually experienced the evil! For the future I shall never see a "nigger" squatting away half a dozen mortal hours in a broiling sun patiently waiting for something or for some one, without a lively remembrance of my own cooling of the calces at the custom-house of Alexandria.

At length, about the end of May (1853) all was ready. Not without a feeling of regret I left my little room among the white myrtle blossoms and the rosy oleander flowers with the almond smell. I kissed with humble ostentation my good host's hand in presence of his servants-he had become somewhat unpleasantly anxious, of late, to induce in me the true Oriental feeling, by a slight administration of the bastinado-I bade adieu to my patients, who now amounted to about fifty, shaking hands with all meekly and with religious equality of attention; and, mounted in a "trap" which looked like a cross between a wheel-barrow and a dog-cart, drawn by a kicking, jibbing, and biting mule, I set out for the steamer, the "Little Asthmatic."

[FN#1] The long pipe which at home takes the place of the shorter chibuk used on the road. [FN#2] The jubbah is a long outer garment, generally of cloth, worn by learned and respectable men.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 12 of 154
Words from 11175 to 12241 of 157964