So That For This Month My House-Hire Amounted To Nearly Four
Pence A Day.
But I was fortunate enough in choosing the Jamaliyah Wakalah, for I
found a friend there.
On board the steamer a fellow-voyager, seeing me
sitting alone and therefore as he conceived in discomfort, placed
himself by my side and opened a hot fire of kind inquiries. He was a
man about forty-five, of middle size, with a large round head closely
shaven, a bull-neck, limbs sturdy as a Saxon's, a thin red beard, and
handsome features beaming with benevolence. A curious dry humour he
had, delighting in "quizzing," but in so quiet, solemn, and quaint a
way that before you knew him you could scarcely divine his drift.
"Thank Allah, we carry a doctor!" said my friend more than once, with
apparent fervour of gratitude, after he had discovered my profession. I
was fairly taken in by the pious ejaculation, and some days elapsed
before the drift of his remark became apparent.
"You doctors," he explained, when we were more intimate, "what do you
do? A man goes to you for ophthalmia: it is a purge, a blister, and a
drop in the eye! Is it for fever? well! a purge and kinakina (quinine).
For dysentery? a purge and extract of opium. Wa'llahi! I am as good a
physician as the best of you," he would add with a broad grin, "if I
only knew the Dirham-birhams,[FN#1]-drams and drachms,-and a few
break-jaw Arabic names of diseases."
Haji Wali[FN#2] therefore emphatically advised me to
[p.44]make bread by honestly teaching languages. "We are
doctor-ridden," said he, and I found it was the case.
When we lived under the same roof, the Haji and I became fast friends.
During the day we called on each other frequently, we dined together,
and passed the evening in a Mosque, or some other place of public
pastime. Coyly at first, but less guardedly as we grew bolder, we
smoked the forbidden weed "Hashish,[FN#3]" conversing lengthily the
while about that world of which I had seen so much. Originally from
Russia, he also had been a traveller, and in his wanderings he had cast
off most of the prejudices of his people. "I believe in Allah and his
Prophet, and in nothing else," was his sturdy creed; he rejected
alchemy, jinnis and magicians, and truly he had a most unoriental
distaste for tales of wonder. When I entered the Wakalah, he
constituted himself my cicerone, and especially guarded me against the
cheating of trades-men. By his advice I laid aside the Darwaysh's gown,
the large blue pantaloons, and the short shirt; in fact all connection
with Persia and the Persians. "If you persist in being an 'Ajami," said
the Haji, "you will get yourself into trouble; in Egypt you will be
cursed; in Arabia you will be beaten because you are a heretic; you
will pay the treble of what other travellers do, and if you fall sick
you may die by the roadside." After long deliberation about
[p.45]the choice of nations, I became a "Pathan.[FN#4]" Born in India
of Afghan parents, who had settled in the country, educated at Rangoon,
and sent out to wander, as men of that race frequently are, from early
youth, I was well guarded against the danger of detection by a
fellow-countryman.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 35 of 302
Words from 18229 to 18806
of 157964
