Egypt of the Pharaohs and of the Khedivé

by F. Barham Zincke

I had gone from Jerusalem to Bethany with a young friend late from Harrow, great in athletics, and full of fun and good spirits. We were on foot—for who would care to go to, or return from, Bethany otherwise? and, having arrived at the village, were inquiring for what is shown as the tomb of Lazarus. The women of the place soon collected round us. One of them, in the first bloom of youth, looked like a visitant to Earth, come to enable hapless mortals to dream of the perfectness of Paradise. Her figure would have given Praxiteles new ideas. Her face was slightly oval; her features fine and regular; and her complexion such as must be rare in an Arab girl, for her lips were of a rich, if of a dusky, coral, and the rose envermeiled her nut-brown cheeks. Her eyes thought. Her beauty was about her as a halo of light. To look upon her was fascination. My admiration was speechless. Not so, however, my young friend’s; for, turning to our dragoman, he said, ‘Ask that young lady if she is married?’ My breath went from me at the sudden indignation with which she fired up.

As she walked away, giving utterance, as she went, to some angry Arabic, I looked into the faces of the women about us. It was evident that they were impressed with, and approved of, the propriety of her conduct. It will, I thought, be long remembered, and quoted, in the village as an example of the promptitude, and decision, with which an Arab girl should guard her reputation.

And now, I said to myself, we are in for it. She will go and fetch her father, or a brother, or some relative assumed for the occasion, and there will be a row. I suggested, therefore, to my young friend, ‘that the tomb was a transparent imposture; that it could only be an excavation in the rock, made by some mediæval monk; and that we should do better to go on, and look at something else.’ And so we got away.

As we left the party of women, I gave them a little more backsheesh than usual; and then told the dragoman that we would leave the place at once, but not by the road by which we had come.

We had just cleared the village, and I was congratulating myself on our having got off so speedily, when we encountered a flight of locusts. I soon became absorbed in observing their ‘numbers numberless.’ They gave me, I thought, a new idea of multitude. They blurred the sunlight almost like a cloud. I began to capture some of them, which I now have preserved in spirits.

While thus occupied, and with a feeling of wonder, at the infinitude of living things around us, growing upon me, the apprehensions I had lately felt, dropped entirely out of my mind. In this way we went on. When we had got about three-quarters of a mile from the village we came to a turn in the mountain path, far removed from any dwelling, and where all was solitude and quiet. As we approached the corner, a young woman stepped forward from behind a projecting rock, and with a gracious look, and most engaging smile, presented my young friend with a carefully-arranged and beautiful bouquet.

Could my eyes be deceiving me? No. It was no other than the exemplary young creature, who, only half-an-hour back, had shown so much and such becoming indignation.

My apprehensions, then, and precautions had been unnecessary. But, in American phrase, ‘How dreffle smart’ to combine, in so prompt and graceful a manner, the credit of being good with the pleasure of being good-natured. Could anything have been better imagined in London, or Paris?

So it seemed. But honi soit qui mal y pense. True, few can be as beautiful, few as keen-witted as the girl of Bethany. But also true that none could have been more free from thought of evil. ’Twas all for backsheesh.

And where two rupees are a marriage portion—so much to them, and so little to us—whose heart would condemn the bare-footed young tactician?