From this tent onward we were welcomed at all, but we were quite satisfied after visiting three or four, as etiquette required that we should take coffee whenever we sat down, and the coffee of the East is like Sam Weller’s veal pie, “werry fillin.” We had a good taste of Oriental hospitality, and were not at all displeased with the courtesy that was shown us.
All foreigners who were on the ground were treated with similar liberality and coffee, but the general populace was not allowed to enter any of the tents except those specially assigned to it.
Returning to the front of the Diplomatic tent I found the Turkish comedy still in progress and the diplomats as inattentive as before. While we were standing near the ropes our Consul-General, Mr. Beardsley, caught sight of me and came out to shake hands. The instant he spoke to me the guards made way and escorted Gustave and myself into the tent and were as civil to us as to any of the accredited occupants. The attendants brought coffee and cigars on the instant; the coffee was better and the cigars were of much finer quality than those we had received in the tents further down the line The divans were softer and the carpet was real Turkey that must have cost many piastres to the square yard. We reclined in front of the improvised theatre, and pretended to be much interested in the play, thinking that was the proper thing to do. Mr. Beardsley explained that we would offend nobody, not even the actors, by paying no attention to the show, and as we could not understand the dialogue, we very soon became as careless and unobservant as anybody else.
Turkish comedy must be a tame affair according to Western ideas, and I would not advise any enterprising manager to import a company from Constantinople or Cairo under the belief that he could make a sensation and with it a fortune. The recitations were monotonous and the plot was exceedingly simple as Mr. Beardsley explained it, and had the usual mixture of love and jealousy that we find in comedies all over the globe.
“It is fortunate for you,” said he with a smile, “that you do not understand Turkish dialogue. Your sensibilities might receive a shock from some of the allusions which are rather too indelicate for the English or American stage.”
“Where ignorance is bliss ‘tis folly to be wise,” saith the old proverb. We drank our coffee and smoked our cigars undisturbed by the improprieties we could not comprehend.
Cakes and sweetmeats were brought but we declined them, and soon followed Mr. Beardsley to the outer gate where his carriage awaited him. Bidding him good night we returned to the enclosure and stumbled upon a large tent standing apart from the rest. Investigating this we found that it was a restaurant with what a New Yorker would call a free lunch standing ready, for those who were hungry. The bill of fare was not extensive, but consisted of Arab stews of mutton and goat’s flesh, and of two or three dishes in which rice was a prominent ingredient. We were invited to enter but declined as we had had all the Arab dishes we wanted during our Nile journey.
When the hereditary prince was married the restaurants were more numerous and better supplied than on the present occasion, and I was told that in one of them there was a free service of champagne to all foreigners. No really good Mohammedan drinks wine—his religion forbids it—but they are not very straight-laced in Egypt, and you not unfrequently find steady drinkers who between their glasses repeat reverentially the Moslem formula “La illah, il Allah; Mohammed yessul illah!” (There is no God but God and Mohammed is the Prophet of God.) The East is fast becoming civilized. As I have before said, many Orientals who would have been horrified at the thought twenty years ago will now treat their wives as though they were human beings, and do not hesitate to get drunk when occasion offers. New England missionaries and New England rum are more popular in the Orient than they were formerly. But while I have been talking, the pyrotechnics have burned out, the musicians—Arab and Occidental—have ended their strains, the tent-lamps are burning dimly, the candles in the Chinese lanterns are flickering, the acrobats and singers have disappeared, and the crowd is dispersing. So we will to our donkeys and gallop back to our boat moored against the bank of the lotos-bearing Nile, and in the quiet of its cabins will fall into a well-earned sleep to be filled with dreams of a gala night in Egypt.
