When you get back to Rome and Athens, the ruins there seem like those of a house of a first settler in Chicago or St. Louis. Nothing under thirty centuries will be regarded as antique.
It happened to be market day when we reached Siout, and as we rode into the town, we found the public square crowded with people. In the square there were large quantities of sugarcane, palm stalks, squashes, peas and beans exposed for sale, and the natives were squatted around them, or walking slowly about.
The edge of the square was fringed with a lot of solemn old Arabs, smoking their pipes and giving their whole minds to the business, as they squatted in front of the wall. Smoking is universally enjoyed by all classes of the Egyptians. There are many men who are rarely seen without a pipe in their hand, and many of the wealthy people may be seen on the street, attended by a servant, who solemnly walks behind carrying his master’s pipe. The flexible tube of the “Nargeeleh” is often seven or eight feet long, and its great length allows the smoke to cool before entering the mouth. Camels and donkeys were very numerous, and you had to look sharp to prevent being run over.
The Professor was nearly overturned by one of the camels, or rather by the load of sugar canes that protruded on each side of the animal’s back, and if I had not pulled him out of the way suddenly, he would have gone into a basket of eggs, with great detriment to both the merchandise and himself.
Just outside the town was the market place for donkeys, and dozens of these animals were standing there, awaiting purchasers. We enquired the prices of some, but the Arabs knew we were not likely to be purchasers, and so they named exorbitant figures. A fair donkey can be bought for twenty-five or thirty dollars, and a good one for forty or fifty Prices range considerably above that, but they are for fancy animals of extra fine appearance. Twenty pounds will purchase a donkey of much style and many fine qualities.
I have a confession to make, which is to be confidential. I gambled that day at Siout, and have felt badly about it ever since. The way of it was this.
The Professor and I were walking in the market place, looking at the crowd of country people and their wares, and at the tinkers, cobblers, and blacksmiths at work in the open air, at the cafés with their patrons smoking their long pipes and sipping coffee’ from little cups, at the peddlers of cakes and oranges, and other edible things, and at the general confusion and bustle that went on with the most perfect good nature.