We Now Conducted Our Journey In Such A Manner As Not To Fall In Again
With The Soldiers; But Two Days After I Met The Man Again At Tor.
The
governor of Suez was then there, to whom I might have addressed my
complaints:
This he was afraid of, and therefore walked up to me with a
smiling countenance, and said he hoped that no rancour subsisted between
us; that as to the shot he fired, it was merely for the purpose of
calling his companions to assist him with his camel. In reply, I assured
him that my shot had quite a different object, and that I was sorry it
had missed; upon which he laughed and went away. There are not on earth
more insolent, haughty, and at the same time vile and cowardly beings
than Turkish soldiers: wherever they expect to meet with no resistance,
they act in the most overbearing, despotic manner, and think nothing of
killing an inoffensive person, in the slightest fit of passion; but when
they meet with a firm resistance, or apprehend any bad consequences from
their conduct, there is no meanness to which they will not immediately
submit. During my journey through Egypt from Cairo to Assouan, the whole
of which was performed by land, I had several similar rencontres with
soldiers; and I must lay it down as a rule for travellers, constantly to
treat these fellows with great hauteur, as the most trifling
condescension is attributed by them to fear, and their conduct becomes
intolerable. We travelled this day about nine hours.
[p.435] June 7th. We continued our course in valleys for about two hours
and a half, when we came to a high mountain, where I was obliged to
dismount. It was with great difficulty that I could reach the summit,
for my strength was exhausted; and I had been shivering with a fever
the whole preceding night. It took us about two hours and a half to pass
the mountain, and to descend into the valley on the other side. From the
top we had a fine view of the Gulf of Akaba. The upper part of this
mountain is granite, and its lower ridges gruenstein. In the afternoon we
issued from this chain into the western plain, which declines slowly
towards the sea of Suez, and encamped in it after a ride of about ten
hours.
June 8th. We reached Tor, in about three hours and a half from our
resting-place. Here we found every thing in a great bustle. The lady of
Mohammed Aly Pasha, whom I had met with at almost every station on this
journey, had arrived here from Yembo a few days before, and, as it blew
strong from the north, had come on shore, that she might proceed by land
to Suez. The governor of Suez and Mustafa Beg, her own brother, one of
the Pasha's principal officers, had come to meet her, and her tents were
pitched close by the little village of Tor.
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