It Is A Great Mistake To Carry Too Few
Clothes, And Those Who Travel As Orientals Should Always Have At Least
One Very Grand Suit For Use On Critical Occasions.
Throughout the East
a badly dressed man is a pauper, and, as in England, a pauper-unless he
belongs to an order having a right to be poor-is a scoundrel.
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.
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