Before me were two great European hotels filled with tourists. And close by the station was an inn for penniless wanderers. It was a tumble-down shack wherein, dreaming away his old age over a cigarette, sat Pietro Saggharia. Pietro was a wanderer once. His stories of “the road,” collected during forty years of roaming about in Africa, and told in almost any language the listener may choose, are to be had for a kind word.
I left my knapsack in Pietro’s keeping, and struck off toward Karnak. Tourists go to Karnak to see what is left of many temples there. The principal temple is that built in honor of Ammon, a being that the Egyptians once worshiped. Ammon was an imaginary creature with the body of a man and the head and horns of a ram. He was supposed to be very wise and able to answer any question asked of him. His temple was once magnificent, having immense columns, carvings, sculptures, and paintings, placed there by his worshipers.
I did not expect to see the inside of the famous temples, for I had no ticket. The price of such a ticket is little short of a vagabond’s fortune. I journeyed to Karnak, therefore, with my mind made up to be content with a view of her row of sphinxes and a walk around her outer walls.
Natives swarmed about me, calling for “baksheesh.” Before I had shaken off the last screeching youth I came upon a great iron gate that shut out the un-ticketed, and paused to peer through the bars. On the ground before the gate squatted a sleek, well fed native. He arose and told me he was the guard, but made no attempt to drive me off.
As I turned away he said in Arabic: “You don’t see much from here. Have you already seen the temple? Or perhaps you have no ticket?”
“No; no ticket,” I answered in Arabic. “Therefore I must stay outside.”
“Ah! Then you are no tourist?” smiled the native. “Are you English?”
“Aywa,” I answered, for the Arabic term “Inglesi” means all who speak that language; “but no tourist, merely a working-man.”
“Ah,” sighed the guard: “too bad you are an Inglesi, then; for if you spoke French the superintendent who has the digging done is a good friend of working-men. But he speaks no English.”
“Where shall I find him?”