“The labor of mastering it?”
“Not that exactly, although it is an unending study. Arabic is an exceedingly rich language, as you know—a tongue that has often a hundred words for one simple object has almost infinite capabilities for expressing shades of meaning. To know Arabic grammatically is the work of a lifetime. A man says, when he has given a long life to it, that he knows a little Arabic. My Moslem teacher here, who was as learned an Arab as I ever knew, never would hear me in a grammatical lesson upon any passage he had not carefully studied beforehand. He begged me to excuse him, one morning, from hearing me (I think we were reading from the Koran) because he had not had time to go over the portion to be read. Still, the difficulty of which I speak, is that Arabic and the Moslem religion are one and the same thing, in the minds of the faithful. To know Arabic is to learn the Koran, and that is the learning of a learned Arab. He never gets to the end of the deep religious meaning hidden in the grammatical intricacies. Religion and grammar thus become one.”
“I suppose that is what our dragoman means, when he is reading me something out of the Koran, and comes to a passage that he calls too deep.”
“Yes. There is room for endless differences of opinion in the rendering of almost any passage, and the disagreement is important, because it becomes a religious difference. I had an example of the unity of the language and the religion in the Moslem mind. When I came here the learned thought I must be a Moslem because I knew the grammatical Arabic; they could not conceive how else I should know it.”
When we called upon his excellency, Shakeer Pasha, the square in front of his office and the streets leading to it were so covered with sitting figures that it was difficulty to make a way amidst them. There was an unusual assembly of some sort, but its purport we could not guess. It was hardly in the nature of a popular convention, although its members sat at their ease, smoking, and a babel of talk arose. Nowhere else in Egypt have I seen so many fine and even white-looking men gathered together. The center of every group was a clerk, with inkhorn and reed, going over columns of figures.
The governor's quarters were a good specimen of Oriental style and shabbiness; spacious whitewashed apartments, with dirty faded curtains. But we were received with a politeness that would have befitted a palace, and with the cordial ease of old friends. The Pasha was heartbroken that we had not notified him of our coming, and that now our time would not permit us to stay and accept a dinner—had we not promised to do so on our return? He would send couriers and recall our boat, he would detain us by force. Allowing for all the exaggeration of Oriental phraseology, it appeared only too probable that the Pasha would die if we did not stay to dinner and spend the night. But we did not.
This great concourse? Oh, they were sheykhs and head men of all the villages in the country round, whom he had summoned to arrange for the purchase of dromedaries. The government has issued orders for the purchase of a large number, which it wants to send to Darfour. The Khedive is making a great effort to open the route to Darfour (twenty-eight days by camel) to regular and safe travel, and to establish stations on the road. That immense and almost unknown territory will thus be brought within the commercial world.
During our call we were served with a new beverage in place of coffee; it was a hot and sweetened tea of cinnamon, and very delicious.
On our return to the river, we passed the new railway station building which is to be a handsome edifice of white limestone. Men women, and children are impressed to labor on it, and, an intelligent Copt told us, without pay. Very young girls were the mortar-carriers, and as they walked to and fro, with small boxes on their heads, they sang, the precocious children, an Arab love-song;—
“He passed by my door, he did not speak to me.”