Of Late Years The Latter Have Been Refused
Admittance, But It Would Be As Easy To Bar The Door To
Gnats and flies.
They appear as "foot-pages," as washerwomen, as beggars; in fact, they
evade the law with ingenuity
And impunity.
[FN#30] Isma'il Pasha was murdered by Malik Nimr, chief of Shendy, for
striking him with a chibuk across the face. Travellers would do well to
remember, that in these lands the pipe-stick and the slipper disgrace a
man, whereas a whip or a rod would not do so. The probable reason of
this is, that the two articles of domestic use are applied slightingly,
not seriously, to the purposes of punishment.
[FN#31] Anglice, Alexandria, Cairo, and Suez,-an extensive field of
operations.
[p.141]CHAPTER VIII.
FROM CAIRO TO SUEZ.
SHAYKH NASSAR, a Badawi of Tur (Mount Sinai,) being on his way
homewards, agreed to let me have two dromedaries for the sum of fifty
piastres, or about ten shillings, each.[FN#1] Being desirous to set out
with a certain display of respectability, I accepted these terms: a man
of humble pretensions would have travelled with a single animal, and a
camel-man running behind him. But, besides ostentation, I wanted my
attendant to be mounted, that we might make a forced march in order to
ascertain how much a four years' life of European effeminacy had
impaired my powers of endurance. The reader may believe the assertion
that there are few better tests than an eighty-four mile ride in
mid-summer, on a bad wooden saddle, borne by a worse dromedary, across
the Suez Desert.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 190 of 571
Words from 52650 to 52922
of 157964
