I took a farewell stroll around the Mooskee, the Esbekeeah, and the Shoobra road and skirmished for the last time with the donkey boys and dragomen who infest those places. Among the tribes of ragged, dirty, vagrant urchins who swarm in the streets of Cairo, the donkey boys head the list. Every traveller knows them and you hear them spoken of as “Confounded rascals” or “Bright little fellows” according to the luck the Frankish traveller has happened to meet among the species. Occasionally you see boot-blacks with kits similar to their cousins in more civilized countries, and the two who used to hang around my hotel in Cairo always ready for “backsheesh” whether they gave my boots a “shine” or not, were the most unprepossessing little gamins I ever met.
One fellow used to annoy two of us greatly with propositions to enter our employ; and half a dozen times every day he used to pester us with proposals, and we endeavored to hire him to let us alone but all to no purpose. He had performed a slight service for us for which he would take nothing and he felt that this service entitled him to hang around, and ask us for recommendations, and try to make a contract with us. We could not shake him off and one day the Judge hit upon a neat expedient.
On the whole I had no regret at parting with the donkey boys and dragomen, particularly with the latter, who hang around the the hotels at Cairo in great numbers, and were always ready to agree to take you anywhere you wish to go.
One of them answered “yes” to my question as to the possibility of accompanying me to the moon, and offered to undertake the job for thirty shillings a day and furnish everything. As I was not then ready for an aerial voyage I did not pursue the subject, and as he left me alone after that I conclude that he must have felt offended.
“I shall be much obliged,” said the dragoman, “if you will get me a good party of Americans to go to Jerusalem. I take them cheap and very well.” And twenty times a day he made this proposal.
One day when we saw him standing on the veranda of the hotel—he had not caught sight of us but was evidently waiting for our appearance—the Judge walked forward as if he were anxiously looking for the dragoman, and said, “I have a good thing for you. There may be a party of rich Americans coming down the Nile, and if you can find them and make a bargain with them to pay a high price you will be lucky.”
“Yes, yes,” said Mohammed, his eyes glistening with delight, “I make good bargain with them, I take them cheap and very well.”