“Well, I don’t wonder at it,” said Mr Burne with a sigh as he tickled his nose with a fresh pinch. “It does seem very silly. Tell them it is not they, but we: we are the fools.”
“Don’t tell them anything of the kind, Yussuf,” said the professor. “It is not foolish to search for wisdom. Tell them the truth. We are not seeking for treasures, but to try and find something about the history of the people who built these cities.”
Yussuf turned to the country people again and delivered himself of his message, after which several of the people spoke, and there was another laugh.
“Well, what do they say now?”
“They ask why you want to know all this, effendi,” replied Yussuf. “It is of no use to argue with these people. They have no knowledge themselves, and they cannot understand how Frankish gentlemen can find pleasure therein. I have travelled greatly with Englishmen, and it is so everywhere. I was with an effendi down in Egypt, where he had the sand dug away from the mouth of a buried temple, and the sheik and his people who wandered near, came and drove us away, saying that the English effendi sought for silver and gold. It was the same among the hills of Birs Nimroud, where they dig out the winged lions and flying bulls with the heads of men, and the stones are covered with writing. When we went to Petra, four English effendis and your servant, we were watched by the emir and his men; and it was so in Cyprus, when the effendi I was with—an American excellency—set men to work to dig out the carved stones and idols from a temple there—not beautiful, white marble stones, but coarse and yellow and crumbling. It is always a fight here in these lands against seeking for knowledge, effendi. It is a thing they cannot understand.”
“What shall we do, then?”
“What they do, effendi, half their time—nothing.”
“But they will be a nuisance,” cried the professor.
“Yes, effendi,” said the guide, with a shrug of the shoulders. “So are the flies, but we cannot drive them away. We must be content to go on just as if they were not here.”
The professor saw the sense of the argument, and for the next four hours the party were busy on that hill-slope climbing amongst the stones of the ancient city—one which must have been an important place in its day, for everywhere lay the broken fragments of noble buildings which had been ornamented with colonnades and cornices of elaborate workmanship. Halls, temples, palaces, had occupied positions that must have made the city seem magnificent, as it rose up building upon building against the steep slope, with the little river gurgling swiftly at the foot.