But Soon The Passive Fit Has Passed Away; Again A
Paroxysm Of Ennui Coming On By Slow Degrees, Viator Loses Appetite, He
Walks About His Room All Night, He Yawns At Conversations, And A Book
Acts Upon Him As A Narcotic.
The man wants to wander, and he must do
so, or he shall die.
After about a month most pleasantly spent at Alexandria, I perceived
the approach of the enemy, and as nothing hampered my incomings and
outgoings, I surrendered. The world was "all before me," and there was
pleasant excitement in plunging single-handed into its chilling depths.
My Alexandrian Shaykh, whose heart
[p.17]fell victim to a new "jubbah," which I had given in exchange for
his tattered za'abut[FN#2] offered me, in consideration of a certain
monthly stipend, the affections of a brother and religious refreshment,
proposing to send his wife back to her papa, and to accompany me, in
the capacity of private chaplain to the other side of Kaf.
[FN#3] I politely accepted the "Bruderschaft," but many reasons induced
me to decline his society and services. In the first place, he spoke
the detestable Egyptian jargon. Secondly, it was but prudent to lose
the "spoor" between Alexandria and Suez. And, thirdly, my "brother" had
shifting eyes (symptoms of fickleness), close together (indices of
cunning); a flat-crowned head, and large ill-fitting lips; signs which
led me to think lightly of his honesty, firmness, and courage.
Phrenology and physiognomy, be it observed, disappoint you often
amongst civilised people, the proper action of whose brain upon the
features is impeded by the external pressure of education, accident,
example, habit, and necessity. But they are tolerably safe guides when
groping your way through the mind of man in his so-called natural
state, a being of impulse, in that chrysalis condition of mental
development which is rather instinct than reason.
Before my departure, however, there was much to be done.
The land of the Pharaohs is becoming civilised, and unpleasantly so:
nothing can be more uncomfortable than its present middle state,
between barbarism and the reverse. The prohibition against carrying
arms is rigid as in Italy; all "violence" is violently denounced; and
beheading
[p.18]being deemed cruel, the most atrocious crimes, as well as those
small political offences, which in the days of the Mamluks would have
led to a beyship or a bow-string, receive fourfold punishment by
deportation to Fayzoghlu, the local Cayenne. If you order your peasant
to be flogged, his friends gather in threatening hundreds at your
gates; when you curse your boatman, he complains to your consul; the
dragomans afflict you with strange wild notions about honesty; a
Government order prevents you from using vituperative language to the
"natives" in general; and the very donkey boys are becoming cognisant
of the right of man to remain unbastinadoed. Still the old leaven
remains behind: here, as elsewhere in the "Morning-land," you cannot
hold your own without employing the voie de fait.
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