“Poor little girl!” said the second. “She was a comely lass!”
“Ah me!” sighed the third. “But we’ll give her a good funeral to-morrow.”
Their alternate laughter and tears presently attracted the attention of other members of the family, and soon their crime was out.
During an epidemic of cholera some years ago orders were sent to the native authorities in the villages to “isolate” any cases of the illness which might be detected. An English official, happening to visit one of these villages a short time after this order had been issued, asked the head man whether any cases of cholera had occurred among his people.
“Only one,” replied the old Egyptian—“a girl. We ‘isolated’ her.”
“Good!” said the Englishman. “How did you do it?”
The native smiled and drew his finger across his throat. “With a knife,” he said.
The Egyptian’s idea of justice is peculiar; and although the better class native judges are usually excellent exponents of the law, instances are often to be noticed of an absurdly childish reasoning. A short time ago two natives were had up before the courts on the charge of having carried firearms without licenses. In passing sentence the native judge fined one of the offenders one hundred piastres and the other fifty piastres. An English official asked the Judge why he had not given the same punishment to both men.
“Well, you see,” said the Egyptian, “one of the guns was longer than the other.”
So much has been written in regard to native superstitions that little need here be said upon the subject. I cannot refrain, however, from recording one story dealing with this phase of Egyptian life. A native effendi, a man of the educated classes, found himself in trouble one morning at the Zoological Gardens at Cairo owing to the fact that he had been observed by one of the keepers to climb the railings surrounding the giraffes’ compound and to open and shut an umbrella several times, apparently for the purpose of frightening one of the animals. When he was closely questioned as to his actions he stated that he had wished to shade the giraffe’s neck from the sun, in order that he might have the pleasure of watching the creature shrink to the size of a mouse, a phenomenon which he had been told would be observed if a shadow were cast upon that part of its anatomy at noon.