M'adri-"Don't Know," Growled The Man Of Authority, Without Moving Any
Thing But The Quantity Of Tongue Absolutely Necessary For Articulation.
Now there are three ways of treating Asiatic officials,-by bribe, by
bullying, or by bothering them with a dogged perseverance into
attending to you and your concerns.
The latter is the peculiar province
of the poor; moreover, this time I resolved, for other reasons, to be
patient. I repeated my question in almost the same words. Ruh! "Be
off," was what I obtained for all reply. But this time the questioned
went so far as to open his eyes. Still I stood twirling the paper in my
hands, and looking very humble and very persevering, till a loud Ruh ya
Kalb! "Go, O dog!" converted into a responsive curse the little speech
I was preparing about
[p.21]the brotherhood of Al-Islam and the mutual duties obligatory on
true believers. I then turned away slowly and fiercely, for the next
thing might have been a cut with the Kurbaj,[FN#7] and, by the hammer
of Thor! British flesh and blood could never have stood that.
After which satisfactory scene,-for satisfactory it was in one sense,
proving the complete fitness of the Darwaysh's costume,-I tried a dozen
other promiscuous sources of information,-policemen, grooms, scribes,
donkey-boys, and idlers in general. At length, wearied of patience, I
offered a soldier some pinches of tobacco, and promised him an Oriental
sixpence if he would manage the business for me. The man was interested
by the tobacco and the pence; he took my hand, and inquiring the while
he went along, led me from place to place, till, mounting a grand
staircase, I stood in the presence of Abbas Effendi, Naib or deputy to
the Governor.
It was a little, whey-faced, black-bearded Turk, coiled up in the usual
conglomerate posture upon a calico-covered diwan, at the end of a long,
bare, large- windowed room. Without deigning even to nod the head,
which hung over his shoulder with transcendent listlessness and
affectation of pride, in answer to my salams and benedictions, he eyed
me with wicked eyes, and faintly ejaculated "Min ent[FN#8]?" Then
hearing that I was a Darwaysh and doctor-he must be an Osmanli
Voltairean, that little Turk-the official snorted a contemptuous snort.
He condescendingly added, however, that the proper source to seek was
"Taht," which, meaning simply "below," conveyed to an utter stranger
rather imperfect information from a topographical point of view.
At length, however, my soldier guide found out that
[p.22]a room in the custom-house bore the honourable appellation of
"Foreign Office." Accordingly I went there, and, after sitting at least
a couple of hours at the bolted door in the noon-day sun, was told,
with a fury which made me think I had sinned, that the officer in whose
charge the department was, had been presented with an olive branch in
the morning, and consequently that business was not to be done that
day.
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