he pursues the same course in other lands where it is exceedingly misplaced. His doctrines of liberty and

[p.39]equality he applies to you personally and practically, by not rising when you enter or leave the room,-at first you could scarcely induce him to sit down,-by not offering you his pipe, by turning away when you address him; in fact, by a variety of similar small affronts which none knows better to manage skilfully and with almost impalpable gradations. If-and how he prays for it!-an opportunity of refusing you anything presents itself, he does it with an

"In rice strength,
In an Indian manliness,[FN#13]"

say the Arabs. And the Persians apply the following pithy tale to their neighbours. "Brother," said the leopard to the jackal, "I crave a few of thy cast-off hairs; I want them for medicine;[FN#14] where can I find them?" "Wa'llahi!" replied the jackal, "I don't exactly know-I seldom change my coat-I wander about the hills. Allah is bounteous,[FN#15] brother! hairs are not so easily shed."

Woe to the unhappy Englishman, Pasha, or private soldier, who must serve an Eastern lord! Worst of all, if the master be an Indian, who, hating all Europeans,[FN#16] [p.40]adds an especial spite to Oriental coarseness, treachery, and tyranny. Even the experiment of associating with them is almost too hard to bear. But a useful deduction may be drawn from such observations; and as few have had greater experience than myself, I venture to express my opinion with confidence, however unpopular or unfashionable it may be.

I am convinced that the natives of India cannot respect a European who mixes with them familiarly, or especially who imitates their customs, manners, and dress. The tight pantaloons, the authoritative voice, the pococurante manner, and the broken Hindustani impose upon them-have a weight which learning and honesty, which wit and courage, have not. This is to them the master's attitude: they bend to it like those Scythian slaves that faced the sword but fled from the horsewhip. Such would never be the case amongst a brave people, the Afghan for instance; and for the same reason it is not so, we read, with "White Plume," the North American Indian. "The free trapper combines in the eye of an Indian (American) girl, all that is dashing and heroic in a warrior of her own race, whose gait and garb and bravery he emulates, with all that is gallant and glorious in the white man." There is but one cause for this phenomenon; the "imbelles Indi" are still, with few exceptions,[FN#17] a cowardly and slavish people, who would raise themselves by depreciating those superior to them in the scale of creation. The Afghans and American aborigines, being chivalrous races, rather exaggerate the valour of their foes, because by so doing they exalt their own.[FN#18]

[FN#1] Villages notorious for the peculiar Egyptian revelry, an undoubted relic of the good old times, when "the most religious of men" revelled at Canopus with an ardent piety in honour of Isis and Osiris. [FN#2] "Haykal" was a pleasant fellow, who, having basely abused the confidence of the fair ones of Wardan, described their charms in sarcastic verse, and stuck his scroll upon the door of the village mosque, taking at the same time the wise precaution to change his lodgings without delay. The very mention of his name affronts the brave Wardanenses to the last extent, making them savage as Oxford bargees. [FN#3] The Barrage is a handsome bridge,-putting the style of architecture out of consideration,-the work of French engineers, originally projected by Napoleon the First. It was intended to act as a dam, raising the waters of the Nile and conducting them to Suez, the salt lakes, and a variety of other places, through a number of canals, which, however, have not yet been opened. Meanwhile, it acts upon the river's trunk as did the sea of old upon its embouchures, blocking it up and converting the land around it to the condition of a swamp. Moreover, it would have cleaned out the bed by means of sluice gates, forming an artificial increase of current to draw off the deposit; but the gates are wanting, so the piers, serving only to raise the soil by increasing the deposit of silt, collect and detain suspended matter, which otherwise would not settle. Briefly, by a trifling expenditure the Barrage might be made a blessing to Egypt; in its present state it is a calamity, an "enormous, cruel wonder," more crushing to the people than were the pyramids and sphinxes of old. [FN#4] Those skilled in simples, Eastern as well as Western, praise garlic highly, declaring that it "strengthens the body, prepares the constitution for fatigue, brightens the sight, and, by increasing the digestive power, obviates the ill-effects arising from sudden change of air and water." The traveller inserts it into his dietary in some pleasant form, as "Provence-butter," because he observes that, wherever fever and ague abound, the people, ignorant of cause but observant of effect, make it a common article of food. The old Egyptians highly esteemed this vegetable, which, with onions and leeks, enters into the list of articles so much regretted by the Hebrews (Numbers, xi. 5; Koran, chap. 2). The modern people of the Nile, like the Spaniards, delight in onions, which, as they contain between 25 and 30 per cent. of gluten, are highly nutritive. In Arabia, however, the stranger must use this vegetable sparingly. The city people despise it as the food of a Fellah-a boor. The Wahhabis have a prejudice against onions, leeks, and garlic, because the Prophet disliked their strong smell, and all strict Moslems refuse to eat them immediately before visiting the mosque, or meeting for public prayer. [FN#5] A policeman; see Chap. I. [FN#6] The stricter sort of Moslems, such as the Arabs, will not wear gold ornaments, which are forbidden by their law. [FN#7] See "The Gold Mines of Midian," and "The Land of Midian (Revisited)," by Sir R. F. Burton. [FN#8] The projecting latticed window, made of wood richly carved, for which Cairo was once so famous. But they are growing out of fashion with young Egypt, disappearing before heating glass and unsightly green blinds. [FN#9] Caste in India arises from the peculiarly sociable nature of the native mind, for which reason "it is found existing among sects whose creeds are as different and as opposite as those of the Hindu and the Christian." (B. A. Irving's Prize Essay on the Theory and Practice of Caste.) Hence, nothing can be more terrible to a man than expulsion from caste; the excommunication of our feudal times was not a more dreadful form of living death. [FN#10] With us every man's house is his castle. But caste divides a people into huge families, each member of which has a right to know everything about his "caste-brother," because a whole body might be polluted and degraded by the act of an individual. Hence, there is no such thing as domestic privacy, and no system of espionnage devised by rulers could be so complete as that self-imposed by the Hindus. [FN#11] The Calcutta Review (No. 41), noticing "L'Inde sous la Domination Anglaise," by the Baron Barchou de Penhoën, delivers the following sentiment: "Whoever states, as the Baron B. de P. states and repeats, again and again, that the natives generally entertain a bad opinion of the Europeans generally, states what is decidedly untrue." The reader will observe that I differ as decidedly from the Reviewer's opinion. Popular feeling towards the English in India was "at first one of fear, afterwards of horror: Hindus and Hindis (Moslems) considered the strangers a set of cow-eaters and fire-drinkers, tetrae beluae ac molossis suis ferociores, who would fight like Iblis, cheat their own fathers, and exchange with the same readiness a broadside of shots and thrusts of boarding-pikes, or a bale of goods and a bag of rupees." (Rev. Mr. Anderson-The English in Western India.) We have risen in a degree above such a low standard of estimation; still, incredible as it may appear to the Frank himself, it is no less true, that the Frank everywhere in the East is considered a contemptible being, and dangerous withal. As regards Indian opinion concerning our government, my belief is, that in and immediately about the three presidencies, where the people owe everything to and hold everything by our rule, it is most popular. At the same time I am convinced that in other places the people would most willingly hail any change. And how can we hope it to be otherwise,-we, a nation of strangers, aliens to the country's customs and creed, who, even while resident in India, act the part which absentees do in other lands? Where, in the history of the world, do we read that such foreign dominion ever made itself loved? [FN#12] This was written three years before the Indian Mutiny. I also sent into the Court of Directors a much stronger report-for which I duly suffered. [FN#13] In the Arabic "Muruwwat," generosity, the noble part of human nature, the qualities which make a man. [FN#14] "For medicine," means for an especial purpose, an urgent occasion. [FN#15] "Allah Karim!" said to a beggar when you do not intend to be bountiful. [FN#16] Read an account of Tipu Sahib's treatment of his French employes. If Rangit Singh behaved better to his European officers, it was only on account of his paramount fear and hatred of the British. The Panjabi story of the old lion's death is amusing enough, contrasted with that Anglomania of which so much has been said and written. When the Sikh king, they declare, heard of our success in Afghanistan-he had allowed us a passage through his dominions, as ingress into a deadly trap-his spirits (metaphorically and literally) failed him; he had not the heart to drink, he sickened and he died. [FN#17] The Rajputs, for instance, "whose land has ever been the focus of Indian chivalry, and the home of Indian heroes." [FN#18] As my support against the possible, or rather the probable, imputation of "extreme opinions," I hold up the honoured name of the late Sir Henry Elliot (Preface to the Biographical Index to the Historians of Mohammedan India). "These idle vapourers (bombastic Babus, and other such political ranters), should learn that the sacred spark of patriotism is exotic here, and can never fall on a mine that can explode; for history will show them that certain peculiarities of physical, as well as moral organisation, neither to be strengthened by diet nor improved by education, have hitherto prevented their ever attempting a national independence; which will continue to exist to them but as a name, and as an offscouring of college declamations."

[p.41]CHAPTER IV.

LIFE IN THE WAKALAH.

THE "Wakalah," as the Caravanserai or Khan is called in Egypt, combines the offices of hotel, lodging-house, and store. It is at Cairo, as at Constantinople, a massive pile of buildings surrounding a quadrangular "Hosh" or court-yard. On the ground-floor are rooms like caverns for merchandise, and shops of different kinds-tailors, cobblers, bakers, tobacconists, fruiterers, and others. A roofless gallery or a covered verandah, into which all the apartments open, runs round the first and sometimes the second story: the latter, however, is usually exposed to the sun and wind. The accommodations consist of sets of two or three rooms, generally an inner one and an outer; the latter contains a hearth for cooking, a bathing-place, and similar necessaries. The staircases are high, narrow, and exceedingly dirty; dark at night, and often in bad repair; a goat or donkey is tethered upon the different landings; here and there a fresh skin is stretched in process of tanning, and the smell reminds the veteran traveller of those closets in the old French