There is one peculiarity of the Arab that a stranger will not be long in detecting, and that is his readiness to answer each and every question you may put to him. Ask him something, and if he knows the answer he will generally give it; if he does not know, he will reply with anything that his imagination suggests, and he does it as gravely as though he were expounding a text of the Koran.
One day, I asked a donkey boy how much he would ask to take me to the Astor House.
“Two shillin’,” was the prompt reply.
He hadn’t the remotest idea where it was, but did not hesitate a moment to undertake to find it. So I asked him where it was.
“I savez, I savez; on the Esebekiah,” he replied, and pushed his donkey around for me to enter the saddle Other boys came up, and I said I wished to go the Astor House and Tammany Hall.
In half a minute the whole crowd was vociferating, and the price fell from two shillings to two francs, and then to one shilling. I was obliged to end the matter by hiring a donkey and going to the citadel. Every driver was ready to take me to the places I mentioned, and was confident he could find them.
The Arabs have a story which they tell, to account for their tendency to falsehood.
They say that His Satanic Majesty once came on earth with nine bags full of lies. He scattered the contents of one bag in Europe, and then started for Asia, Africa, and the Oriental Isles.