He: “Stranger, yew don’t roost here, I guess?”
I: “No; I am just travelling for a few months, and shall leave Cairo in two or three days’ time.”
He: “In what line may you be travelling, stranger?”
Now, of course I knew what he meant, but thought his remarks were so original, not to say impertinent, that I must not omit this opportunity of extracting some amusement, and provide material for my diary. I therefore replied—
“Oh! I came by the P. and O. line to Alexandria, by rail here, and now my lines have fallen in pleasant places.”
“Guess yew don’t quite fathom me. What’s yer business, and where are you going tew?” said he.
I then gave him the names of a number of places in Egypt and the Soudan, enumerating them as rapidly as I could, so that I am quite sure my nasal friend was very little the wiser for the information.
He enshrouded himself in a huge cloud of smoke, vigorously expectorated once more, and regarding me fixedly for a moment, exclaimed—
“By Jupiter! stranger, that’s a large order. Opening up a trade or colonize, I guess.”
I suppose, because I told him I was travelling with six other gentlemen, he thought we were going to start a colony somewhere, and then annex all the adjacent country, which, by the way, would certainly be a very good thing for the Egyptians and the Soudanese, and very probably for ourselves also. However, I gave him to understand that we were simply travelling for pleasure, exploration, and sport. Notwithstanding this, my Yankee acquaintance was determined to turn me inside out if he could; he, therefore, was so complimentary as to say—