The Story Teller of the Desert—"Backsheesh!" / or, Life and Adventures in the Orient

by Thomas Wallace Knox

The El Azhar mosque is the great college of Cairo, and also the principal university of the East. There are small porticoes, divided into apartments, for the use of natives from different parts of Egypt and the Orient, each province or country having a room to itself. The professors receive no salaries, but live upon presents from the pupils, and by copying books or performing other literary work. There are nine thousand students, and more than three hundred professors attached to this university! Nearly all the sciences taught in all the colleges of the globe have a place here.

Arabic is not an easy language to acquire to perfection, but I am told that one can learn to talk it fairly in about twice the time that it would take for learning a European language. In the short time that I was in Cairo I picked up a smattering, as I make it a rule to do in all countries where I expect to stay more than a month.

You will be astonished to find how far you can get along with a few words, if you only set about it in earnest. My Arabic was much like the English of some of the donkey drivers; there were no prepositions and conjunctions in it, and the construction of the verbs placed all the rules of grammar at defiance.

In fact, you can get along without many verbs when you are put to it. All you want is the name of the thing you are after, and the words for “how much.” Then you must have the numerals, and thus armed and equipped, you may set out on a shopping excursion with a brave heart, and a consciousness that every shop-keeper you deal with will cheat you if possible.

The Arabs begin to read a book where we would finish it, and they generally read from right to left, though not always. When they write they hold the paper in the left hand, and grasp a small stick in the right. This stick is sharpened to a point, like a pencil, and dipped in the ink, and with it the letters are formed with considerable rapidity. As in some of the cities of Europe, there are men whose profession it is to write letters for those unable to write, and you see these men squatted on the sidewalk, with paper, pen, ink and sand before them, ready for a customer. They have a peculiar kind of ink-stand in Cairo; it is made of brass, and has a long handle running back nearly a foot. This handle is hollow, and holds the pens, and it serves the purpose of sustaining the ink-stand in the girdle. The ink is generally a little thicker than ours, but they can write with European ink without trouble. You see these ink-stands very often in the girdles of merchants and accountants in the bazaars, and it is not unusual to see a man standing or squatting on the sidewalk, and engaged in the production of a letter. And the oddest thing of the whole business is to see him holding the paper in his hand; if you ask an Arab to sit at your desk to write a letter, the chances are fifty to one that he will pick up the paper instead of placing it on the flat surface, as is our invariable custom. In the government offices they have learned to write with the paper flat on the desk, but they do not take to it kindly.

I have seen a high official sit at his desk and pick up a document in order to affix his signature, and he continued to hold the paper until he had signed it and appended his seal. The seal is a very necessary part of the business; it is not put on with wax, but is stamped with ink.

Every year a caravan leaves Cairo for Mecca, and is accompanied by pilgrims to the birth-place of Mohammed. The march is through the desert, and consumes from sixty to eighty days, sometimes exceeding the latter number. The annual pilgrimage from all parts of the Mohammedan world is about seventy thousand, the number going by land is steadily decreasing, for the reason that one can now go by steamer to Djeddah, on the Red Sea, and from thence two or three days on foot will bring him to the Holy City. Steamers run regularly from Suez to Djeddah, and in the season of pilgrimage there are extra boats that carry deck passengers at a very low fare.

The departure of the annual caravan from Cairo is a scene of great pomp. A camel is designated to carry the Mahmal, or sacred canopy; it was originally designed to contain such of the wives of the Caliphs as wished to make the journey, but latterly it contains nothing, and has become simply a rich decoration, which ultimately finds a place in one of the mosques. Another camel carries the Kiswe Ji en nebbe, a quantity of rich silk, covered with sentences from the Koran, embroidered in letters of gold.

It is annually supplied from Cairo for lining the temple at Mecca; the old one is returned and cut into small bits for distribution among those of the faithful who are unable to make the pilgrimage.

The caravan starts from the Citadel, and there is generally a large crowd in attendance, to see it off. It has always been the custom for the reigning Viceroy or Caliph to witness the departure of the caravan, but for two years the Khedive has not been present in person. He has sent a deputy, in the shape of his son; the Viceroy or his deputy presents a purse of gold to the rider of the camel to pay the expenses of the journey, and, formerly, this purse was noted for its size and weight. It has grown small by degrees, and beautifully less, and the probability is that before many years, the presentation will cease altogether. The Khedive shows a most emphatic desire to put an end to the useless and expensive mummeries that have been handed down to him from the early days of Mohammedanism.