Look, For Instance, At That Indian Moslem Drinking A Glass Of
Water.
With us the operation is simple enough, but his performance
includes no fewer than five novelties.
In the first place he clutches
his tumbler as though it were the throat of a foe; secondly, he
ejaculates, "In the name of Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful!"
before wetting his lips; thirdly, he imbibes the contents, swallowing
them, not sipping them as he ought to do, and ending with a satisfied
grunt; fourthly, before setting down the cup, he sighs forth, "Praise
be to Allah"-of which you will understand the full meaning in the
Desert; and, fifthly, he replies, "May Allah make it pleasant to thee!"
in answer to his friend's polite "Pleasurably and health!" Also he is
careful to avoid the irreligious action of drinking the pure element in
a standing position, mindful, however, of the three recognised
exceptions, the fluid of the Holy Well Zemzem, water distributed in
charity, and that which remains after Wuzu, the lesser ablution.
Moreover, in Europe, where both extremities are used indiscriminately,
one forgets the exclusive use of the right hand, the manipulation of
the rosary, the abuse of the chair,-your genuine Oriental gathers up
his legs, looking almost as comfortable in it as a sailor upon the back
of a high-trotting -the rolling gait with the toes straight to the
front, the grave look and the habit of pious ejaculations.
Our voyage over the "summer sea" was eventless. In a steamer of two or
three thousand tons you discover
[p.7]the once dreaded, now contemptible, "stormy waters" only by the
band-a standing nuisance be it remarked-performing
"There we lay
All the day,
In the Bay of Biscay, O!"
The sight of glorious Trafalgar[FN#7]| excites none of the sentiments
with which a tedious sail used to invest it. "Gib" is, probably, better
known to you, by Theophile Gautier and Eliot Warburton, than the
regions about Cornhill; besides which, you anchor under the Rock
exactly long enough to land and to breakfast. Malta, too, wears an old
familiar face, which bids you order a dinner and superintend the iceing
of claret (beginning of Oriental barbarism), instead of galloping about
on donkey-back through fiery air in memory of St. Paul and White-Cross
Knights. But though our journey might be called monotonous, there was
nothing to complain of. The ship was in every way comfortable; the
cook, strange to say, was good, and the voyage lasted long enough, and
not too long. On the evening of the thirteenth day after our start, the
big-trowsered pilot, so lovely in his deformities to western eyes, made
his appearance, and the good screw "Bengal" found herself at anchor off
the Headland of Clay.[FN#8]
Having been invited to start from the house of a kind friend, John W.
Larking, I disembarked with him, and
[p.8]rejoiced to see that by dint of a beard and a shaven head I had
succeeded, like the Lord of Geesh, in "misleading the inquisitive
spirit of the populace." The mingled herd of spectators before whom we
passed in review on the landing-place, hearing an audible
"Alhamdolillah"[FN#9] whispered "Muslim!" The infant population spared
me the compliments usually addressed to hatted heads; and when a little
boy, presuming that the occasion might possibly open the hand of
generosity, looked in my face and exclaimed "Bakhshish,"[FN#10] he
obtained in reply a "Mafish;"[FN#11] which convinced the bystanders
that the sheep-skin covered a real sheep. We then mounted a carriage,
fought our way through the donkeys, and in half an hour found
ourselves, chibuk in mouth and coffee-cup in hand, seated on the diwan
of my friend Larking's hospitable home.
Wonderful was the contrast between the steamer and that villa on the
Mahmudiyah canal! Startling the sudden change from presto to adagio
life! In thirteen days we had passed from the clammy grey fog, that
atmosphere
[p.9]of industry which kept us at anchor off the Isle of Wight, through
the loveliest air of the Inland Sea, whose sparkling blue and purple
haze spread charms even on N. Africa's beldame features, and now we are
sitting silent and still, listening to the monotonous melody of the
East-the soft night-breeze wandering through starlit skies and tufted
trees, with a voice of melancholy meaning.
And this is the Arab's Kayf. The savouring of animal existence; the
passive enjoyment of mere sense; the pleasant languor, the dreamy
tranquillity, the airy castle-building, which in Asia stand in lieu of
the vigorous, intensive, passionate life of Europe. It is the result of
a lively, impressible, excitable nature, and exquisite sensibility of
nerve; it argues a facility for voluptuousness unknown to northern
regions, where happiness is placed in the exertion of mental and
physical powers; where Ernst ist das Leben; where niggard earth
commands ceaseless sweat of face, and damp chill air demands perpetual
excitement, exercise, or change, or adventure, or dissipation, for want
of something better. In the East, man wants but rest and shade: upon
the banks of a bubbling stream, or under the cool shelter of a perfumed
tree, he is perfectly happy, smoking a pipe, or sipping a cup of
coffee, or drinking a glass of sherbet, but above all things deranging
body and mind as little as possible; the trouble of conversations, the
displeasures of memory, and the vanity of thought being the most
unpleasant interruptions to his Kayf. No wonder that "Kayf" is a word
untranslatable in our mother-tongue![FN#12]
"Laudabunt alii claram Rhodon aut Mytelenen."
Let others describe the once famous Capital of
[p.10]Egypt, this City of Misnomers, whose dry docks are ever wet, and
whose marble fountain is eternally dry, whose "Cleopatra's
Needle"[FN13] is neither a needle nor Cleopatra's; whose "Pompey's
Pillar" never had any earthly connection with Pompey; and whose
Cleopatra's Baths are, according to veracious travellers, no baths at
all.
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