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.
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