Dragomen are of all kinds, from the worst to the best; most of them bring recommendations from former employers, and, while these should have due weight, it is best not to rely on them implicitly. There are some of the profession who enjoy a high reputation, and their prices are fixed accordingly; a cheap dragoman is almost sure to be a poor one, but not all high-priced ones are necessarily good. If possible, when starting for a journey in Syria and Egypt, get a friend who has been there before you to recommend a dragoman, and make a careful note of the name and address, so that there can be no mistake. Good ones may also be heard of around the consulate of your country, and in whatever bargain you make you should have the consular approval. The dragomen who hang about the hotels are not to be relied on, as they are often in league with the establishments to make something out of the stranger, or have agreed to pay a commission to whoever can get them an engagement.
George William Curtis, in his Nile Notes, says, "The dragoman is of four species; the Maltese, or able knave; the Greek, or the cunning knave; the Syrian, or the active knave; and the Egyptian, or the stupid knave." The description is by no means inaccurate, but it gives the impression that all are knaves, whatever their race or nationality. There is little to choose between them, and whatever kind you employ it is quite possible you may wish you had taken another. There are honest and efficient ones among all the different races, and also a liberal allowance of those who are worthless, or even worse.
Detailed directions for engaging dragomen, and the forms of contracts to be made with them, can be found in the guide-books of Murray and Baedeker, to which the reader is referred. Never trust yourself to draw a contract that will be "iron-clad," but go to your consulate and have the matter attended to there, at a cost of five dollars. Then, in case of trouble, the consul can be called to arbitrate the matter, and his decision will be final. As you are required to pay half, or more, of the engagement-money at the time of making the contract, you thus place yourself at the mercy of the man you are engaging, and it is worth while to be cautious.
If a particular dragoman has been recommended to you by some friend at home, you will very likely be told on enquiring for him that he died a few months ago. Of course, it is just possible that he is no longer alive, as drago—like other men—are but mortal, but his death at that time is by no means a certainty. His rivals have a convenient way of ridding themselves of his competition by killing him metaphorically, and they are particular to state time, place, and circumstances with great minuteness. Bayard Taylor became much attached to his dragoman in his journey up the Nile in 1852, and recommended him, a few years afterwards, to some friends. They brought back the information of the man's death, but on visiting Cairo in 1874 Taylor found his old companion alive and well, and very much chagrined at the announcement of his demise. "He is dead," or "He has just left with a party," is the stereotyped answer of the dragomen you encounter around the hotels when you ask for one whose name has been given to you by a friend at home, although it is well known by them that the man in question is within a dozen blocks of them, and waiting for a job.
It is the custom at the end of a journey in the Holy Land, or on the Nile, to make a present to the servants in addition to the contract-price agreed upon with the dragoman or manager of the party. The dragoman is always ready to attend to the distribution of this gratuity, and shows great activity in looking after it. Verdant travelers are apt to place the affair and the money in his hands with the expectation that he will carry out their wishes; the only distribution he makes, in nine cases out of ten, is to distribute the cash around the pockets of his own garments, and leave the other servants without a penny. Unless you give the money to the waiters with your own hands the chances are ten to one they will get nothing, and the whole amount will go to enrich the dragoman; it will not even answer to allow that worthy to distribute it to them in your presence, as he will manage by certain dexterous turns of the wrist to retain the larger portion for himself. Complaints of his misconduct are unlikely to reach your ears, as the servants are his subordinates, and liable to lose their places if they incur his displeasure. The writer was once a member of a party on a Nile steamboat that made up a purse for the servants; while the money was being raised two or three of the cabin-waiters intimated privately that if the money was put in the hands of the dragoman they would get nothing, since he always kept the whole of it. "Whatever you give us," said they, "please put in our own hands," and we acted on the hint to the great disgust of the dragoman.
CHAPTER XII.
RAILWAY TRAVELING ON THE CONTINENT.
The American traveler who makes his first tour abroad will come upon something new as soon as he visits a railway station. The cars are quite unlike those to which he has been accustomed at home; they have no passage-way running the whole length of the vehicle, and most of them present a Lilliputian appearance when compared with the American passenger car. They are divided into compartments which generally contain seats for eight persons, and are entered by doors at either end. The occupants of a compartment face each other, so that when the place is full half the passengers are riding backwards and the other half forwards. Some persons are made ill unless they have their faces in the direction they are traveling; a tourist who belongs to this category should make sure of his place by the aid of a porter, and there is generally no trouble about the matter. Those who are not disturbed by the aforesaid nausea prefer to sit with their backs toward the locomotive, as they escape a good deal of the dust and smoke that fall to the lot of those in the "front-face" position. There is a large window in the upper half of the door, and there are smaller windows at the ends of the rows of seats; if you have your back towards the engine, and are in an end seat, the open window in the door will give you all the air you need, while in the opposite seat you might find the breeze too strong. A seat on the windward side of the train is preferable to a leeward one, though much will depend upon the position of the sun and the scenery along the route.
On the Swiss railways many of the carriages are on the American system, with doors at the ends and a passageway in the center, but they still cling to the compartment idea, and have partitions with doors that permit free circulation. In Italy, and some other countries, you occasionally find a carriage with a saloon in the center, capable of seating twelve or sixteen persons, but such cars are not common, and are considered a luxury to be specially ordered. Some of the first-class carriages have the compartments arranged for six passengers—three on a side—but the majority are intended for eight. On every train you will usually find one or more carriages with a coupé at the end; it can be made to hold four persons, but there is no advantage in securing it for more than two. It is considered as a place de luxe, and can only be occupied by payment of an extra charge, which is usually about one-sixth of the price of the passage ticket. Two persons in a coupé are tolerably certain not to be disturbed by the entrance of other passengers, but a single passenger is not so safe. The coupé may be engaged beforehand on application to the station-master, but the companies will never guarantee that a particular train will contain coupé carriages.
The Pullman palace and sleeping-cars have not been introduced in Europe to any extent, notwithstanding persistent efforts by the Pullman Company for a decade or more. The Midland Railway Company, of England, has adopted them, and they are used on two or three smaller lines in the United Kingdom, but not in any great number. On the Continent they have found their principal footing in Italy, under the auspices of the Strada Ferrata del' Alta Italia (Railway of Upper Italy), which has adopted them for the comfort of passengers on the Indian mail route between London and Brindisi. On several of the continental lines the Mann Boudoir sleeping-car has been introduced; it is the enterprise of an American, and is a very serviceable vehicle, though less comfortable than the famous Pullman. The Mann car is the ordinary European railway carriage equipped with sleeping accommodations, lavatories and the like; the traveler must have a first-class ticket to be admitted, and he pays in addition about $2.50 per night. There are offices in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and other large cities, where places may be secured in the Mann sleeping-cars just as they are secured in the Pullman cars in America.
Some of the companies have cars fitted up with the "fauteuil-lit," or bed-chair; it is the ordinary seat so arranged that it may be converted into a bed, or a poor substitute for one, and the extra cost is nearly, if not quite, equal to a third of the price of the ticket. Three fauteuils-lits fill a compartment, and the occupants of those away from the door must climb over the one nearest to it in getting in or out after the beds have been opened. Very few of the roads have any kind of sleeping-carriage whatever, and the night traveler on long journeys will miss the luxuries that he finds in the United States. "Bless the name of Pullman," he will often exclaim, as he crawls, dusty and disjointed, from where he has sat bolt or limply upright for hours, and contrasts his present feelings with those he would have at the end of a journey from New York to Chicago. There are no toilet facilities on the European trains, with the exception of those on the few sleeping-cars in use, and retiring-closets are by no means universal. Most of the coupés contain them, and they can generally be found in the baggage-wagon or under the brake-van. The keys of these "cabinets" are in charge of the conductor, who will readily open them on application, but they can only be reached or left while the train is halted at a station.