“I see that you can make birds and snakes,” I replied; “but that neither proves that you can cut scarabs, nor that these scarabs are new.”
“Nay, sitt,” he protested, “I made them with these hands. I made them but the other day. By Allah! they cannot be newer.”
Here Talhamy interposed.
“In that case,” he said, “they are too new, and will crack before a month is over. The sitt would do better to buy some that are well seasoned.”
Our honest fellâh touched his brow and breast.
“Now in strict truth, O dragoman!” he said, with an air of the most engaging candor, “these scarabs were made at the time of the inundation. They are new; but not too new. They are thoroughly seasoned. If they crack, you shall denounce me to the governor, and I will eat stick for them!”
Now it has always seemed to me that the most curious feature in this little scene was the extraordinary simplicity of the Arab. With all his cunning, with all his disposition to cheat, he suffered himself to be turned inside-out as unsuspiciously as a baby. It never occurred to him that his untruthfulness was being put to the test, or that he was committing himself more and more deeply with every word he uttered. The fact is, however, that the fellâh is half a savage. Notwithstanding his mendacity (and it must be owned that he is the most brilliant liar under heaven), he remains a singularly transparent piece of humanity, easily amused, easily deceived, easily angered, easily pacified. He steals a little, cheats a little, lies a great deal; but on the other hand he is patient, hospitable, affectionate, trustful. He suspects no malice and bears none. He commits no great crimes. He is incapable of revenge. In short, his good points outnumber his bad ones; and what man or nation need hope for a much better character?
To generalize in this way may seem like presumption on the part of a passing stranger; yet it is more excusable as regards Egypt than it would be of any other equally accessible country. In Europe, and indeed in most parts of the east, one sees too little of the people to be able to form an opinion about them; but it is not so on the Nile. Cut off from hotels, from railways, from Europeanized cities, you are brought into continual intercourse with natives. The sick who come to you for medicines, the country gentlemen and government officials who visit you on board your boat and entertain you on shore, your guides, your donkey boys, the very dealers who live by cheating you, furnish endless studies of character, and teach you more of Egyptian life than all the books of Nile-travel that were ever written.
Then your crew, part Arab, part Nubian, are a little world in themselves. One man was born a slave, and will carry the dealer’s brand-marks to his grave. Another has two children in Miss Whateley’s school at Cairo. A third is just married, and has left his young wife sick at home. She may be dead by the time he gets back, and we will hear no news of her meanwhile. So with them all. Each has his simple story—a story in which the local oppressor, the dreaded conscription, and the still more dreaded corvée, form the leading incidents. The poor fellows are ready enough to pour out their hopes, their wrongs, their sorrows. Through sympathy with these, one comes to know the men; and through the men, the nation. For the life of the beled repeats itself with but little variation wherever the Nile flows and the khedive rules. The characters are the same; the incidents are the same. It is only the mise en scène which varies.
And thus it comes to pass that the mere traveler who spends but half a year on the Nile may, if he takes an interest in Egypt and the Egyptians, learn more of both in that short time than would be possible in a country less singularly narrowed in all ways—politically, socially, geographically.