Round the Wonderful World

by G. E. Mitton

Picture the scene at an English railway station of any size, with its solidly-built platform and its gloomy roof and its row of uniformed porters drawn up waiting the arrival of the incoming train. I don't suppose anywhere you could find anything less like this than the station at Assouan where we await our train this afternoon. There are great palm trees springing out of the platform itself, not fenced in in any way. There are masses of scarlet poinsettias growing. And the porters! yes, they are porters, not criminals waiting to be hanged! There they stand, a ragged regiment indeed, dressed in any sort of garment that takes their fancy. Most of them look as if they had collected all the dish-clouts and dusters which had seen service and piled them on anyhow. To add to their adornment each man has a double coil of shabby-looking rope hung round his neck, this is to fasten together the luggage he hopes to carry. The men are of all sizes and all colours. That good-looking fellow at the end is not darker than a sun-browned Englishman, while that stout, round-faced, thick-lipped one next to him is as black as the polished boot seen in an advertisement. He is a Nubian, for here we are on the borders of Nubia, now counted part of Egypt. The porters are making a tremendous hullabaloo, chattering and quarrelling at the tops of their voices, so a native policeman in khaki comes along and smacks one of them hard on the side of his face, and then catches him a crack on the other side to make him keep his balance; the man does not resent it at all—he rubs his cheek and takes the hint. Fancy a policeman in our country smacking a porter on the face; what a row there would be!

Here is the train! The engine-driver and his mate are dressed in shabby European clothes crowned by turbans which have gaudy orange and red handkerchiefs twisted round them. They get down on the platform, and suddenly the fireman sees a rather unpleasant-looking man, with a beard, standing away from the others; he rushes at him, bows low before him, and finally kisses both his hands. The man is probably a sheikh of the Mohammedan church.

The train is a corridor one, and we mount the platform at the end of a carriage and find ourselves in a compartment thick with dust, where the seats vary from straight leather-covered benches to comfortable-looking basket-chairs. The place is crammed with "kit"; dispatch-boxes, helmet-cases, sword-cases and leather bags fill every corner.

"Allow me," says a pleasant-voiced sunburnt man as he stoops to remove some of his things to make room for us. "We've come right up from Cairo and things get a bit scattered," he adds apologetically.

When we get clear of the town we find that in addition to glass windows and wooden shutters there are also windows of blue glass to keep off the glare, a splendid idea, as they do not hinder the view. One of these is up, and peeping through it we get our first real glimpse of the desert, transformed as if it lay beneath bright moonlight. From the other side we can see it as it is in its yellow colouring. How fascinating! Its runs away in sweeping low waves to a line of hills and is crossed by caravan tracks; even as we watch we see a man riding a small donkey ahead of a string of camels laden with huge bales. The railway is still but a small thing in Egypt; it runs right ahead, with few side-lines, and from it the desert tracks lead off in many directions. The camel, who has been the bearer of Egyptian traffic for generations, still does a large share of the transport. A good camel is expensive, but a man who owns one is sure of a livelihood, for he works backwards and forwards across the great solitudes, eating his handful of dates or grain, and drinking the water he carries with him, if he is not lucky enough to camp near a well. Oddly enough camels are not represented on the wall-drawings of the ancient Egyptians, and though it is true they were probably not to be found in the country in the very earliest times, yet they were certainly introduced as early as the horse, who is often shown in battle-scenes.

MEN OF THE BISHARIN TRIBE.

What rivets our attention directly it comes into sight is an encampment of low mat huts like beehives right out in the midst of the sand.

"Those belong to the Bisharin," says the same fair-haired, keen-faced man who had first spoken; "tribe of fuzzy-wuzzies! They extend right away from here to the Red Sea. Live on raw grain mostly. Quaint lot!"

Some of the men from the camp are standing near the railway line, so we can see them well; they are very tall and extremely handsome, with well-cut features and well-proportioned figures. Their hair is cut exactly after the fashion of the palm trees, with a tuft standing up in the middle and two tufts dropping away from it on each side. These men are quiet enough now that they have learnt the British power, but not so long ago they were inflamed with fanatical hatred.