The thoroughbred wanderer's idiosyncrasy I presume to be a composition of what phrenologists call "inhabitiveness" and "locality," equally and largely developed. After a long and toilsome march, weary of the way, he drops into the nearest place of rest to become the most domestic of men. For a while he smokes the "pipe of permanence" with an infinite zest; he delights in various siestas during the day, relishing withal a long sleep at night; he enjoys dining at a fixed dinner hour, and wonders at the demoralization of the mind which cannot find means of excitement in chit-chat or small talk, in a novel or a newspaper. But soon the passive fit has passed away; again a paroxysm of ennui coming on by slow degrees, Viator loses appetite, he walks about his room all night, he yawns at conversations, and a book acts upon him as a narcotic. The man wants to wander, and he must do so or he shall die.
After about a month most pleasantly spent at Alexandria, I perceived the approach of the enemy, and as nothing hampered my incomings and outgoings, I surrendered. The world was "all before me," and there was pleasant excitement in plunging single-handed into its chilling depths. My Alexandrian Shaykh, whose heart fell victim to a new "jubbeh" which I had given in exchange for his tattered zaabut, offered me in consideration of a certain monthly stipend the affections of a brother and religious refreshment, proposing to send his wife back to her papa, and to accompany me in the capacity of private chaplain to the other side of Kaf. I politely accepted the "brüderschaft," but many reasons induced me to decline his society and services. In the first place, he spoke the detestable Egyptian jargon. Secondly, it was but prudent to lose the "spoor" between Alexandria and Suez. And thirdly, my "brother" had shifting eyes (symptoms of fickleness), close together (indices of cunning); a flat-crowned head and large ill-fitting lips, signs which led me to think lightly of his honesty, firmness, and courage. Phrenology and physiognomy, be it observed, disappoint you often among civilized people, the proper action of whose brains and features is impeded by the external pressure of education, accident, example, habit, necessity, and what not. But they are tolerably safe guides when groping your way through the mind of man in his natural state, a being of impulse in that chrysalis stage of mental development which is rather instinct than reason. But before my departure there was much to be done.
The land of the Pharaohs is becoming civilized, and unpleasantly so: nothing can be more uncomfortable than its present middle state between barbarism and the reverse. The prohibition against carrying arms is rigid as in Italy; all "violence" is violently denounced; and beheading being deemed cruel, the most atrocious crimes, as well as those small political offenses which in the days of the Mamelukes would have led to a beyship or a bowstring, receive fourfold punishment by deportation to Faizoghli, the local Cayenne. If you order your peasant to be flogged, his friends gather in threatening hundreds at your gates; when you curse your boatman, he complains to your consul; the dragomans afflict you with strange wild notions about honesty; a government order prevents you from using vituperative language to the "natives" in general; and the very donkey-boys are becoming cognizant of the right of man to remain unbastinadoed. Still the old leaven remains behind; here, as elsewhere in "morning-land," you cannot hold your own without employing your fists. The passport system, now dying out of Europe, has sprung up, or rather revived, in Egypt with peculiar vigor. Its good effects claim for it our respect; still we cannot but lament its inconvenience. We, I mean real Easterns. As strangers—even those whose beards have whitened in the land—know absolutely nothing of what unfortunate natives must endure, I am tempted to subjoin a short sketch of my adventures in search of a Tezkireh at Alexandria.
Through ignorance which might have cost me dear but for my friend Larking's weight with the local authorities, I had neglected to provide myself with a passport in England; and it was not without difficulty, involving much unclean dressing and an unlimited expenditure of broken English, that I obtained from the consul at Alexandria a certificate declaring me to be an Indo-British subject named Abdullah, by profession a doctor, aged thirty, and not distinguished—at least so the frequent blanks seemed to denote—by any remarkable conformation of eyes, nose, or cheek. For this I disbursed a dollar. And here let me record the indignation with which I did it. That mighty Britain—the mistress of the seas—the ruler of one-sixth of mankind—should charge five shillings to pay for the shadow of her protecting wing! That I cannot speak my modernized "civis sum Romanus" without putting my hand into my pocket, in order that these officers of the Great Queen may not take too ruinously from a revenue of fifty-six millions! Oh the meanness of our magnificence! the littleness of our greatness!
My new passport would not carry me without the Zabit or Police Magistrate's counter-signature, said the consul. Next day I went to the Zabit, who referred me to the Muhafiz (Governor) of Alexandria, at whose gate I had the honor of squatting at least three hours, till a more compassionate clerk vouchsafed the information that the proper place to apply to was the Diwan Kharijiyeh (the Foreign Office). Thus a second day was utterly lost. On the morning of the third I started as directed for the place, which crowns the Headland of Figs. It is a huge and couthless shell of building in parallelogrammic form, containing all kinds of public offices in glorious confusion, looking with their glaring whitewashed faces upon a central court, where a few leafless wind-wrung trees seem struggling for the breath of life in an eternal atmosphere of clay, dust, and sun-blaze.
The first person I addressed was a Kawwas or police officer, who, coiled comfortably up in a bit of shade fitting his person like a robe, was in full enjoyment of the Asiatic "Kaif." Having presented the consular certificate and briefly stated the nature of my business, I ventured to inquire what was the right course to pursue for a visá.
They have little respect for Dervishes, it appears, at Alexandria! "M'adri" (Don't know), growled the man of authority, without moving anything but the quantity of tongue necessary for articulation.
Now there are three ways of treating Asiatic officials,—by bribe, by bullying, or by bothering them with a dogged perseverance into attending to you and your concerns. The latter is the peculiar province of the poor; moreover, this time I resolved for other reasons to be patient. I repeated my question in almost the same words. "Ruh!" (Be off) was what I obtained for all reply. By this time the questioned went so far as to open his eyes. Still I stood twirling the paper in my hands, and looking very humble and very persevering, till a loud "Ruh ya Kalb!" (Go, O dog!) converted into a responsive curse the little speech I was preparing about the brotherhood of El-Islam and the mutual duties obligatory on true believers. I then turned away slowly and fiercely, for the next thing might have been a cut with the Kurbaj [bastinado], and by the hammer of Thor! British flesh and blood could never have stood that.
After which satisfactory scene,—for satisfactory it was in one sense, proving the complete fitness of the Dervish's dress,—I tried a dozen other promiscuous sources of information,—policemen, grooms, scribes, donkey-boys, and idlers in general. At length, wearied of patience, I offered a soldier some pinches of tobacco and promised him an Oriental sixpence if he would manage the business for me. The man was interested by the tobacco and the pence; he took my hand, and inquiring the while he went along, led me from place to place till, mounting a grand staircase, I stood in the presence of Abbas Effendi, the governor's Naib or deputy.
It was a little whey-faced black-bearded Turk, coiled up in the usual conglomerate posture upon a calico-covered divan, at the end of a long bare large-windowed room. Without deigning even to nod the head which hung over his shoulder with transcendent listlessness and affectation of pride, in answer to my salams and benedictions, he eyed me with wicked eyes and faintly ejaculated "Minent?" Then hearing that I was a Dervish and doctor,—he must be an Osmanli Voltairian, that little Turk,—the official snorted a contemptuous snort. He condescendingly added, however, that the proper source to seek was "Taht," which, meaning simply "below," conveyed rather imperfect information in a topographical point of view to a stranger. At length however my soldier guide found out that a room in the custom-house bore the honorable appellation of "Foreign Office." Accordingly I went there, and after sitting at least a couple of hours at the bolted door in the noonday sun, was told, with a fury which made me think I had sinned, that the officer in whose charge the department was had been presented with an olive-branch in the morning, and consequently that business was not to be done that day. The angry-faced official communicated the intelligence to a large group of Anadolian, Caramanian, Bosniac, and Roumelian Turks,—sturdy, undersized, broad-shouldered, bare-legged, splay-footed, horny-fisted, dark-browed, honest-looking mountaineers, who were lounging about with long pistols and yataghans stuck in their broad sashes, head-gear composed of immense tarbooshes with proportionate turbans coiled round them, and two or three suits of substantial clothes—even at this season of the year—upon their shoulders.