The Senussi—or the better class among them at any rate—keep up the ceremonious manners of the old patriarchal system of the Arabs. Sheykh Ahmed, for instance, would not even stay in the room with his father in the zawia, much less sit down in it without his permission. His younger brothers, in his own home, kissed his hand when they came into the room and waited his permission to sit down. They stood up whenever he did, and remained standing till he went out of the room, or till he signed them to be seated. When Sheykh Mohammed, the second brother, came in, the youngest, Sheykh ’Abd el Wahad, at once stood up.
When dinner arrived the two younger brothers left, to go, I understood, to Sheykh Mohammed’s ezba, which was not far from that of Sheykh Ahmed. Sheykh Ahmed himself helped to lay the cloth. A folding iron table was brought up to near where we were sitting, and an enormous round tray in red enamel, having views of Switzerland in panels all round it, was laid on the table. A cloth was spread over it, and on this the dinner was laid. At nearly all the ’omdas’ houses we stayed at we ate with our fingers in the native way; but at Sheykh Ahmed’s ezba we had nickel-plated spoons and forks, plates, tumblers and knives with plated handles.
Sheykh Ahmed himself, in accordance with the strict Arab etiquette, with his sleeves carefully rolled up to prevent them from being soiled by coming in contact with the dishes, waited on his guests at first—he was a good “bun hander”—and it was not till I invited him to join us, that he took his seat at the table and joined in the conversation. I was unfortunately unable to follow a good deal that he said, as my Arabic at that time was not of the best, but from the laughter that greeted many of his remarks, he was clearly an amusing and witty talker. He joined freely in the chaff of the Egyptian officials, and had evidently a gift of quick repartee.
The Mawhub family prided themselves upon keeping the best table in the oasis, and the dinner that he provided for us was, without any exception, the best meal I ever had the good fortune to take part in, and I took a large part in it.
The mamur was one that the Senussi hoped to convert to their sect—if they had not already done so. Much of their influence in Egypt was gained by this form of “pacific penetration.” Sheykh Ahmed was no fool, and probably realised that the easiest road to an Egyptian’s heart is through his tummy. He had accordingly borrowed his father’s cook from the zawia at Qasr Dakhl to do honour to the occasion. This man was said in the oasis—probably correctly—to have been at one time a chef to the Sultan of Turkey, and Turkish cooking is probably the best in the world.
I do not know whether we in Europe borrowed our monastic system from the Arabs, whether they got it from us, or whether we both got it from some common source; but certainly there are a great many points of resemblance between ours and theirs. The reputation for “good living,” enjoyed by the monasteries of the Middle Ages in Europe, when
“No baron or squire or knight of the shire
Lived half so well as a holy friar.”
has its exact counterpart in most of the Moslem monasteries at the present day. That cook from zawia of the Senussi sect—so famed for their abstemious simple life!—in Qasr Dakhl, was a past-master in his art, and that dinner must have been one of his finest efforts.
First arrived a large basin full of broth with two or three young chickens that had been boiled in it. The broth was strongly flavoured with lemon, which is an acquired taste.