The following morning I received a state visit from the mamur (magistrate), Ibrahim Zaky by name, the doctor, Gorgi Michael, a Copt from Syria, and the zabit, or police officer. The mamur and doctor spoke English fairly well.
Like most of the native officials who are to be found in the oases, the mamur was rather under a cloud, and had been sent to Dakhla as a punishment for some misdeeds of his in his last appointment. These oases posts are cordially disliked by the natives, as in these remote districts they are entirely cut off from the gay life of the towns of the Nile Valley. The appointments, however, have certain advantages. Being so far removed from the towns of the Nile Valley may be dull, but it frees them from the constant supervision of the English inspectors, a state of things of which an Egyptian is usually not slow to take advantage, by extorting bakhshish from the wretched fellahin of their district—often to a most outrageous extent.
One of the English inspectors had very kindly written to the mamur to inform him that I was coming into his district, and to tell him to help me in any way he could. The mamur’s term of office in Dakhla being nearly at an end, he was extremely anxious to get my good word with the inspector in order that he might be appointed to a better district. He was accordingly most oppressive and unremitting in his attentions—until the government removed him to another and still worse district.
He was by no means enthusiastic about his life in the oasis, and, from his account of the natives, he evidently looked upon them as being little removed from beasts. He explained that he had left his wife behind in Egypt, but as he found that he did not get on well without one, he had married a young girl from Mut. He complained bitterly of the expense she had put him to, for as he expressed it in his rather defective English, it had “cost him £25 to make her clean!”
After the Egyptian officials had departed, a succession of ’omdas from all over the oasis dropped in to pay their respects and to ask me to come round to their villages.
After the ’omdas came various minor fry. First the camel postman, a burly, black-bearded Arab, called ’Ali Kashuta, looked in, drank a gallon or two of tea, took a handful of cigarettes out of the box that was handed to him, told me several times that he was my servant, and obviously didn’t mean it; and then asking if I had any letters for post, departed, leaving a breezy independent atmosphere behind him, which was a pleasant contrast to the fawning attitude of the other natives.
Then came the clerk to the Qadi, Sheykh Senussi, who was also a member of the Senussi sect. He was a very learned person and a poet in his leisure moments. He drank tea, but didn’t smoke, and was all smiles and compliments.
Next came the postmaster. He had been to school in the Nile Valley and spoke English quite well. He explained—what I was beginning to realise—that I was causing much mystification to the good people of the oasis; they could not make me out at all. The postmaster, however, who had been educated in Egypt, knew all about it. He had read about a man called “Keristoffer Kolombos,” who had found America, and he thought that I must be in the same line of business. I told him that he was quite right. He beamed all over, and immediately departed to break the good news to an expectant oasis that the great problem had been solved. Before going he wished that Allah would preserve me on my journey, and hoped that I should find another America in the Libyan Desert.
In the afternoon I went round to tea with the mamur in the merkaz, or official residence.
One of his guests was a tall intelligent looking man, who was introduced to me as the ’omda of Rashida, the mamur adding in English that he was one of the most hospitable men in the oasis; but very fond of whisky.