by George Ade
CHAPTER XIX
ROYAL TOMBS AND OTHER PLACES OF AMUSEMENT
One morning we rode across the Nile from Luxor in a broad and buxomsailboat, climbed on our donkeys, and rode to the west. We followedthe narrow road through the fresh fields of wheat and alfalfa until westruck the desert, and then we took to a dusty trail which leads to awinding valley, where the kings of the eighteenth, nineteenth, andtwentieth dynasties are being dug up.
This narrow valley, with the steep hills rising on either side, is thesure-enough utterness of desolation; not a tree, not a shrub, not ablade of grass, not even a stingy little cactus. No wonder the oldkings picked out this valley for a cemetery. Life has no charm in thisdreary region. Eternal sleep would seem to offer peculiar advantages.After winding through the sun-baked gravel for about a mile we came toa settlement of houses and a high fence thrown across the roadway.Also there was an electric light plant buzzing away merrily. The tombsof the kings are now strung with incandescent lights. Can you beatthat for sacrilegious enterprise?
There are forty-one of these royal tombs that have been discovered andopened to date. The less important are not lighted, and are meretunnels leading back to one or two bare chambers. Those really worthvisiting are dug far back into the hills. The halls are spacious andbrilliantly decorated, and before you get through exploring one of themyou think that you are pretty well down toward the centre of the earth.
Mr. Peasley had read up on the Tomb of Amenhotep Third and when weentered it he pushed the regular guide out of the way and gave us oneof his own vivid lectures. The native guide lacks imagination. Hisidea of showing the traveller a frolicksome time is to point out a lotof paintings in which the deceased is seen travelling across the Nilein a funeral barge. Mr. Peasley, on the other hand, gave us an insightinto the character of the wily Amenhotep.
"Now, look at the entrance to this tomb," he said, as we started downthe new wooden steps. "It looks as if someone had been blasting forlimestone. The walls are rough and unfinished. Old Amenhotep figuredthat if anyone ever came across the opening to the tomb he would sizeup this ordinary hole in the ground and conclude that it was either acave used as a storehouse or the last resting place of some cheaptwo-dollar official."
_"Now look at the entrance to this tomb," he said_]
After descending some twenty feet we came to a small chamber which wasrudely frescoed about half of the way around.
"Do you know why he left this job unfinished?" asked Mr. Peasley. "Heknew that some day or other an inquisitive foreigner would be prowlingaround here trying to uncover ancient treasures, and he put this measlylittle antechamber here to throw Mr. Archaeologist off the scent. Hewanted it to appear that the man who was buried here had been so poorthat he couldn't complete the decorations. And now I'll show yousomething more foxy still. Come with me down this long flight of stepsto the second chamber."
He led us down another flight to a tall chamber about the size of afreight car stood on end.
"When the French explorers opened this place in 1898 the chamber whichyou are now inspecting seemed to be the end of the tunnel," continuedMr. Peasley. "The four side walls were perfectly smooth and unbroken,but down at the bottom they found a pit which had been filled withheavy stones. They supposed, of course, that this was the mummy pit,and that if they removed the stones they would find some royal remainsat the other end of the hole. So they worked day after day, liftingout the boulders, and finally they came to the end of the pit and foundthat they had drawn a blank. Naturally they were stumped. Theythought they had been exploring a tomb, but it was only an April fooljoke. One of the professors was not satisfied. He felt sure thatthere must be a royal mummy tucked in somewhere about the premises, sohe took a ladder and climbed around and began tapping all over thewalls of this second chamber. What do you think? He discovered thatthe wall had a hollow sound just opposite the tunnel at which they hadentered. So he used a battering ram and broke through into the realtomb. Yes, sir; these two outer chambers, with their cheap stencilfrescoes and fake mummy pit, had been a blind."
We passed over a narrow wooden bridge and entered the tunnel beyond thesecond chamber. The whole place was brightly illuminated and one couldreadily believe that he was in a modern hallway decorated in the mostgorgeous Egyptian style. The bordering frescoes and the historicalpaintings were as fresh in tone as if they had been put on onlyyesterday. One of the larger chambers looked exactly like the gaudy"Oriental apartment" of a Paris or New York hotel, and we shouldn'thave been surprised or displeased to see a waiter come in with a trayfull of cool drinks.
At last we came to the tomb chamber, and there in a deep hollow, with amodern wooden railing around it, reclined the great King Amenhotep,with the incandescent lamps dangling above him and flooding him in aradiant light. The original granite cover of the outer case has beenremoved and plate glass substituted. We leaned on the rail and gazeddown at the serene countenance of the once mighty monarch who had beenlying there for 3300 years. The funeral garlands which had been laidon his breast were still undisturbed, and the shrunken face wasillumined by that calm smile of triumph which Amenhotep wore when hepassed away confident in the belief that the Nile tourist would neverdiscover his hiding place.
We visited the tomb in company with a bustling swarm of Americanexcursionists of the happy, irreverent kind. The fact that they werestrolling about in a private and highly aristocratic sarcophagus didnot seem to repress their natural gush of spirits or induce any solemnreflections. They were all steaming hot, but very happy and having alot of fun with the King. One enterprising Yankee, who carried hiscoat and vest on his arm, started to climb over the wooden railing inorder to make a close inspection of the mortuary remains, but wasrestrained by the guards.
After leaving the valley of tombs we made a short cut over a very hotand a very high hill to the "rest house" which has been erected far outon the desert by one of the tourist agencies. We collapsed on theshady side of the building, dusty and short of breath, and immediatelywe were attacked by a most vociferous horde of native peddlers. Andwhat do you suppose they were selling? We landed there on Friday, andthe remnant sale of mummies was in full blast. Here are some of thecut prices:--
_Head of adult .................... 4 shillings._ _Foot of adult .................... 1 shilling._ _Hand of adult .................... 1 shilling._ _Two feet and two hands (warranted_ _mates) ........................ 3 shillings._ _Arm and head ..................... 6 shillings._ _Special reduction for juvenile sizes._
Can you imagine anything more disquieting to the nerves, when you areresting and getting ready for luncheon, than to have a villainous childof the desert rush up and lay a petrified human head in your lap andbeg you to make an offer? Within two minutes after we arrived we hadfragments of former humanity stacked all around us. And they wereunmistakably genuine. The native swindlers can make imitation scarabsand potteries, or else import them by the gross from Germany andConnecticut, but the mummy heads which they offer for sale are horriblybona fide. It would not pay to manufacture an imitation article,inasmuch as the whole desert region to the west of ancient Thebes is avast cemetery. If the merchant's stock runs low he can go out with aspade and dig up a new supply, just as a farmer would go afterartichokes.
Our guide co-operated with the ghouls. He rushed about hunting upstrange and grisly specimens and brought them to us and begged us toexamine them and then pick out a few for the loved ones at home. Iregret to say that we did purchase a few of these preservedextremities. The guide said we could use them as paper weights.
_For the loved ones at home_]
This same dragoman, or guide, or highbinder, or whatever you may chooseto call him--and Mr. Peasley called him nearly everything--gave us alot of cheerful entertainment during our four days in Luxor. Mr.Peasley was in hot pursuit of guaranteed antiquities. He said he hadan old bookcase at home which he was going to convert into a curiocabinet. There is one dealer in L
uxor who is said to be absolutelytrustworthy. He supplies museums and private collections throughoutthe world, and if you buy a scarab or a carved image from him you knowthat you have something genuine and worth keeping. Mr. Peasley in athoughtless moment requested the dragoman to conduct us to this shop.We went in and burrowed through the heaps of tempting rubbish and beganto dicker for a job lot of little images, tear jars, amulets, etc.,that are found in the mummy cases. That dragoman saw the covetousgleam in the Peasley eye and he knew that the man from Iowa intendedloading up with antiques, and he also knew that Mr. Peasley wished todo this purchasing single-handed and without the assistance of adragoman, who would come in for a ten per cent. commission. We toldthe dealer we would drop around later. So we went to the hotel anddismissed the dragoman--told him to go home and get a good night's restand be on hand at nine o'clock the next morning.
After we were safely in the hotel Mr. Peasley confided his plans to us.
"I don't want to buy the stuff while that infernal Mahmoud is along,"he said. "Why should he get a rake-off? We didn't go to the shop onhis recommendation. Now, I'll go over there by myself, pick out what Iwant, and strike a bargain."
We offered to go along and assist, so we started up a side street, andafter we had gone a block Mahmoud stepped out from a doorway and said,"Come, I will show you the way." We told him we had just sauntered outfor a breath of air, so we walked aimlessly around a block and wereescorted back to the hotel.
"I'll go over the first thing in the morning," said Mr. Peasley. "I'llbe there at eight o'clock, because he isn't due here until nine."
When he arrived at the shop early next morning Mahmoud was standing inthe doorway wearing a grin of devilish triumph. Mr. Peasley kept onwalking and pretending not to see him, but he came back to the hotelmad all the way through.
_Mahmoud--wearing a grin of devilish triumph_]
"We're up against an Oriental mind-reader, but I'll fool him yet," hedeclared. "When we come back to the hotel for luncheon and he iswaiting for us with the donkey boys on the east side of the hotel wewill go out the west door to the river bank and cut south around thePresbyterian Mission and come back to the shop."
Mr. Peasley did not know that Mahmoud had organised all the hotelservants into a private detective agency. He must have known of ourescape on the river side before we had gone a hundred feet from thehotel, for when, after executing our brilliant flank movement, wearrived at the shop of the antiquarian, Mahmoud and the proprietor weresitting in the front room drinking Turkish coffee and waiting for theprey to wander into the trap. Mahmoud did not seem surprised to seeus. He bade us welcome and said that his friend the dealer was anEgyptologist whose guarantee was accepted by every museum in the world,and if we were in the market for antiques he would earnestly advise usto seek no further. After this evidence of a close and friendlyunderstanding between the dragoman and the dealer we had a feeling thatMahmoud would get his ten per cent, even if we succeeded in eluding himand buying on our own hook.
But we hated to acknowledge ourselves beaten. At dusk that evening westarted toward the shop, in a half-hearted and experimental spirit, andpresently we observed Mahmoud following along fifty feet behind us. Wewent to the garden of a neighbouring hotel and sat there until eleveno'clock. When we came out Mahmoud was at the gateway. He said it wasnot always safe for travellers to be about the streets at night, so hewould protect us and show us the way back to our hotel.
We found it impossible to get away from him. No Siberian bloodhoundever followed a convict's trail more closely. If we ventured forth,early or late, we found ourselves shadowed by that smiling reprobate.When it came to the last day in Luxor Mr. Peasley did the bold thing.He permitted Mahmoud to escort him to the shop, and then he said to thedealer:--"This man is our guide, but he is not entitled to anycommission because he did not bring us to your shop. If he hadrecommended your shop in the first place we would not have come here atall. He is a bluff. He is trying to ring in. I want to buy a fewthings here, with the understanding that he doesn't get anything out ofit. We have already paid him two salaries for guiding us and he isn'ta guide at all--he's a night watchman."
The dealer vowed and protested that he never paid commissions toanyone. Mahmoud, not at all ruffled by the attack on his character,said that his only ambition in life was to serve the noble gentlemanfrom the famous country known as Iowa. So Mr. Peasley bought hisassortment of antiques, and Mahmoud looked on and then carried theparcel back to the hotel, walking respectfully behind the "noblegentleman."
"Well, I blew myself," reported Mr. Peasley. "And I'll bet a thousanddollars that Mahmoud gets his ten per cent."
Whereupon Mahmoud smiled--the pensive, patronising smile of acivilisation five thousand years old looking down on the aboriginalproduct of the Western prairies.
On the morning of our departure from Luxor Mahmoud came around for hisletter of recommendation. I had worked for an hour to write somethingevasive which would satisfy him and not perjure me too deeply. When hecame to the hotel I gave him the following:--
To Whom It May Concern:--The bearer, Mahmoud, has been our dragoman forfour days and has attended us faithfully at all hours; also, he hasshown us as many temples as we wished to see.
He looked at the paper blankly and said, "I do not read English." Atthat Mr. Peasley brightened up. He read the testimonial aloud toMahmoud and declared that it was incomplete and unworthy of the subjectmatter. In ten minutes he completed the following and the dragomantook it away with him, highly pleased:--
To Whom It May Concern--Greeting:--The bearer, Mahmoud, is a dragomanof monumental mendacity and commercial Machiavellism. His simulatedefforts to faithfully serve us and protect our interests have had analtogether negative effect. Anyone employing him will find himpossessed of moral turpitude and a superlative consciousness of his ownworth. His knowledge of Egyptian history is enormouslyinconsequential, while his English vocabulary is amazing in its varietyof verbal catastrophes. We commend him to travellers desirous ofstudying the native characteristics of the most geological stratum ofsociety.
"He has made a lot of trouble for us, and now we've got even by ruininghim," said Mr. Peasley.
It seemed a joke at the time, but later on, when we thought it over, wefelt sorry for Mahmoud and wished we had not taken such a meanadvantage of him. After all is said and done, a man must make a living.
On our way back to Cairo from Assouan we stopped over at Luxor.Mahmoud, by intuition or through telepathy, knew that we were comingand met us at the station. He was overjoyed to see us again.
"I showed your letter to a gentleman from the Kingdom of Ohio," saidhe, "and it procured for me one of the best jobs I ever had."
IN CAIRO
CHAPTER XX
MR. PEASLEY AND HIS FINAL SIZE-UP OF EGYPT
On the morning of our hurried pack up and get away from Luxor we lostMr. Peasley. It was a half-hour before the sailing of the boat, and wewere attempting to lock trunks, call in the porters, give directions asto forwarding mail, and tip everybody except the proprietor all at thesame time.
This excruciating crisis comes with every departure. The fear ofmissing the boat, the lurking suspicion that several articles have beenleft in lower drawers or under the sofa, the dread of overlooking someworthy menial who is entitled to baksheesh, the uneasy conviction thatthe bill contains several over-charges--all these combine to produce amental condition about halfway between plain "rattles" and femalehysteria. And then, to add to the horror of the situation, Mr. Peasleyhad disappeared.
All hands were needed--one to boss the porters, another to round up thetippees, another to audit the charges for "extras," another to make afinal search for razor strops and hot water bags (of which we had lefta trail from Chicago to Cairo). Instead of attending to these reallyimportant duties we were loping madly about the hotel looking forPeasley. We asked one another why we had invited him to join theparty. We called him all the names that we had invented
on the trip tofit his unusual personality. One of these was a "flat-headed fush." Idon't know what a "fush" is, but the more you study it and repeat itover to yourself, the more horrible becomes the full significance ofthe word. Also we called him a "swozzie," which means a chump who hasgone on and on, exploring the furthermost regions of idiocy, until evenhis most daring companions are left far behind. We called Mr. Peasleya "wall-eyed spingo," the latter being a mullet that has lost all senseof shame. Ordinary abuse and profanity became weak and ineffectivewhen pitted against words of this scathing nature.
Reader, if you have a life-long friend and you feel reasonably surethat you never could quarrel with him or be out of patience with him orfind fault with any of his small peculiarities, go on a long trip withhim in foreign lands. You will be together so much of the time thatfinally each will begin to hate the sight of the other. There willcome off days, fraught with petty annoyances, when each will have afretful desire to hurl cameras and suit cases at his beloved playmate.Suppose your lifelong friend has some little eccentricity of manner orspeech, some slight irregularity of behaviour at the table, or aperverted and stubborn conviction which reveals itself in everycontroversy. You may have overlooked this defect for years because youmeet him only at intervals, but when you begin to camp with him youdiscover every one of his shining faults. And how they do get on yournerves! Next to matrimony, perhaps travelling together is the mostsevere test of compatibility.
_You discover every one of his shining faults_]
We liked Mr. Peasley. Looking back over the trip, we can well believethat the expedition would have been rather tame if deprived of hischeering presence. But he was so full of initiative and so given todiscovering byways of adventure that he was always breaking in on theprogramme and starting little excursions of his own. He was a veryhard man to mobilise. If we had solemnly agreed to get together forluncheon at one o'clock, three of us would be waiting at the foodgarage while Mr. Peasley would be a mile away, trying to buy afour-dollar Abyssinian war shield for $2.75.
And where do you suppose he was on the morning we were making ourfrenzied departure from Luxor? We found him in the barber shop, havinghis hair cut. A native stood alongside of him, brushing away theflies. The barber, a curly Italian, had ceased work when we came in,and, encouraged by the questions of Mr. Peasley, was describing the Bayof Naples, pointing out Capri, Sorrento, Vesuve, and other points ofinterest, with a comb in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other.This barber had made an indelible impression on Mr. Peasley, because ofhis name, which was Signor Mosquito. Mr. Peasley said he didn't seehow anyone with a name like that could live.
We lined up in front of Mr. Peasley and gazed at him in witheringsilence. He was not feazed.
_He was not feazed_]
"Talk about oriental luxury," he said. "Little did I think twentyyears ago, when I was measurin' unbleached muslin and drawin' NewOrleans syrup in a country store, that one day I'd recline on a spotteddivan and have a private vassal to keep the flies off of me. To saynothing of bein' waited on by Signor Mosquito."
I tried to hold down the safety valve of my wrath.
"We have just held a meeting and by unanimous vote we have decided thatyou are an irresponsible fush, a night blooming swozzie, and avitrified spingo," I said.
"Thanks," he replied. "I'll do as much for you sometime."
"Are you aware of the fact that the boat departs in twenty minutes?"asked No. 2.
"The boat will not leave its mooring until Peasley, of Iowa, is safelyaboard," he replied. "Why is it that you fellows begin to throw duckfits every time we have to catch a boat or train? Kindly send myluggage aboard, and as soon as Signor Mosquito has concluded hisamputations, I shall join you."
Words failed us. We hurried to the boat, feeling reasonably certainthat he would follow us to Assouan by rail. When it came time to castoff, Mr. Peasley had not appeared, and our irritation was graduallysoftening into a deep joy. The warning whistle blew twice, and thenMr. Peasley came down the bank, carrying a Nubian spear eight feet longover his shoulder. By the time he had arrived on the upper deck thegangplank was drawn and we were swinging in the current.
He bestowed on us a cool smile of triumph, and then removed his hat.His hair had been given a shellac finish and smelled like the frontdoorway of a drug store.
"Signor Mosquito is well named," said Mr. Peasley. "When he gotthrough with me he stung me for fifteen piastres."
For several hours we refused to speak to him or sit near him on deck,but finally we needed him to fill out a four-handed game of dominoesand he was taken back on probation. While we were engaged in a verystubborn session of "double nines," we noticed that most of our fellowpassengers, and especially those of English persuasion, were making ourlittle group the target for horrified glances. Some of them actuallyglared at us. We began to wonder if dominoes was regarded as animmoral practice in Egypt.
"These people keep on looking at us as if we were a happy band ofburglars," said Mr. Peasley. "We think we are travelling incog., butour reputation has preceded us."
Then we heard one old lady ask another if there would be any eveningservices in the dining saloon, and Mr. Peasley, who was reaching intothe "bone yard," suddenly paused with his hand up andexclaimed:--"Sanctified catfish! Boys, it's Sunday!"
"_Boys, it's Sunday!_"]
It was. We had been sitting there among those nice people throughoutthe calm Sabbath afternoon playing a wicked game of chance. After twoweeks among the Mohammedans and other heathen, with every day a workingday and the English Sunday a dead letter, we had lost all trace ofdates. Mr. Peasley said that if anyone had asked him the day of theweek he would have guessed Wednesday.
This unfortunate incident helped to deepen and solidify the darksuspicion with which we, as Americans, were regarded by the contingentfrom Great Britain. If our conduct had been exemplary we could nothave cleared away this suspicion, but after the domino debauch we wereset down as hopeless. The middle class English guard their socialstatus very carefully, and you can't blame them. It is a tender anduncertain growth that requires looking after all the time. If theydidn't water it and prune it and set it out in the sunshine every dayit would soon wither back to its original stalk.
Did you ever come across a bunch of melancholy pilgrims from thesuburban villas and the dull gray provincial towns of dear old England?Did you ever observe the frightened manner in which they hold alooffrom Germans, Americans, Bedouins, Turks, and other foreigners? Theyfear that if they drift into friendly relationship with people theymeet while travelling, later on some of these chance acquaintances maylook them up at Birmingham or Stoke-on-Trent and expect to beentertained at the foundry.
A large majority of our fellow passengers from Luxor to Assouan were ofelderly pattern. We estimated the average age to be abouteighty-three. Mr. Peasley said an irreverent thing about thesevenerable tourists.
"Why do these people come all the way to Egypt to look at the ruins?"he asked. "Why don't they stay at home and look at one another?"
We rebuked him for saying it, but somehow or other these rebukes neverseemed to have any permanent restraining effect.
Our boat arrived at Assouan one morning accompanied by a sand storm anda cold wave. The Cataract Hotel stood on a promontory overlooking anew kind of Nile--a swift and narrow stream studded with gleamingboulders of granite. We liked Assouan because the weather was ideal(after the sand storm ran out of sand), the hotel was the best we hadfound in Egypt, and there were so few antiques that sightseeing becamea pleasure. Besides, after one has been to Luxor, anything in the wayof ancient temples is about as much of a come-down as turkey hash theday after Thanksgiving.
Here, on the border of Nubia, we began to get glimpses of real Africa.We rode on camels to a desert camp of hilarious Bisharins. They arethe gypsies of Nubia--dress their hair with mud instead of bay rum andreside under a patch of gunnysack propped up by two sticks. On thehills back of the town we saw the ba
rracks where the English armygathered itself to move south against the Mahdists. We were invited togo out in the moonlight and hunt hyenas, but did not think it right tokill off all the native game.
The big exhibit at Assouan, and one of the great engineeringachievements of modern times, is the dam across the Nile. It is asolid wall of granite, a mile and a quarter long, 100 feet high inplaces and 88 feet through the base, and it looks larger than itsounds. We went across it on a push car after taking a boat ride inthe reservoir basin, which is said to contain 234,000,000 gallons ofwater. This estimate is correct, as nearly as we could figure it. Thedam is about four miles above the town. We rode up on a dummy train,with cars almost as large as Saratoga trunks, and came back in a smallboat. We shot the rapids, just for excitement, and after we had cavedin the bottom of the boat and stopped an hour for repairs we decidedthat we had stored up enough excitement, so after that we followed themore placid waters.
The black boatmen had a weird chant, which they repeated over and over,keeping time with the stroke. It was a combination of Egyptian melodyand American college yell, and ran as follows:--
Hep! Hep! Horay! Hep! Hep! Horay! Hep! Hep! Horay! All right! Thank you!
This effort represented their sum total of English, and they were veryproud of it, and we liked it, too--that is, the first million times.After that, the charm of novelty was largely dissipated.
Many people visit Assouan because of the kiln-dried atmosphere, whichis supposed to have a discouraging effect on rheumatism and otherailments that flourish in a damp climate. Assouan is as dry asPittsburg on Sunday. It is surrounded by desert and the sun alwaysseems to be working overtime. The traveller who does much rambling outof doors gradually assumes the brown and papery complexion of a royalmummy, his lips become parched and flaky, and he feels like a grocerystore herring, which, it is believed, is about the driest thing onrecord.
We did love Assouan. Coming back from a camel ride, with a choppy seaon, gazing through the heat waves at the tufted palms and theshimmering white walls, we would know that there was ice only a mileahead of us, and then our love for Assouan would become too deep forwords.
Burton Holmes, the eminent lecturer and travelogue specialist, waslying up at Assouan, having a tiresome argument with the germ thatinvented malaria. He had come up the Nile in a deep draught boat andhad succeeded in finding many sand bars that other voyagers hadoverlooked. Just below Assouan the boat wedged itself into the mud andcould not be floated until thirty natives, summoned from thesurrounding country, had waded underneath and "boosted" all afternoon.When it came time to pay the men the captain of the boat said to Mr.Holmes: "What do you think? They demand eight shillings."
"It is an outrage," said Mr. Holmes. "Eight shillings is two dollars.Even in America I can get union labour for two dollars a day. Thereare thirty of them. Couldn't we compromise for a lump sum of fiftydollars?"
"You do not understand," said the captain. "We are asked to pay eightshillings for the whole crowd. I think that six would be enough."
Whereupon Mr. Holmes gave them ten shillings, or 8 1-3 cents each, andas he sailed away the grateful assemblage gave three rousing cheers forMr. Rockefeller.
When we left Assouan we scooted by rail direct to Cairo, to rest up andrecover from our recuperation.
Important! Rush! Egyptian news!]
It is customary in winding up a series of letters to draw certainprofound conclusions and give hints to travellers who may hope tofollow the same beaten path. Fortunately, Mr. Peasley had done thisfor us. He promised a real estate agent in Fairfield, Iowa, that hewould let him know about Egypt. One night in Assouan he read to us theletter to his friend, and we borrowed it:--
Assouan, Some time in April.
Deloss M. Gifford, Fairfield, Iowa, U.S.A.
My Dear Giff:--
I have gone as far up the Nile as my time and the letter of credit willpermit. At 8 G.M. to-morrow I turn my face toward the only country onearth where a man can get a steak that hasn't got goo poured all overit. Meet me at the station with a pie. Tell mother I am coming hometo eat.
Do I like Egypt? Yes--because now I will be satisfied with Iowa. OnlyI'm afraid that when I go back and see 160 acres of corn in one field Iwon't believe it. Egypt is a wonderful country, but very small for itsage. It is about as wide as the court house square, but it seems to meat least 10,000 miles long, as we have been two weeks getting up to theFirst Cataract. Most of the natives are farmers. The hard-workingtenant gets one-tenth of the crop every year and if he looks up to seethe steamboats go by he is docked. All Egyptians who are not farmersare robbers. The farmers live on the river. All other natives live onthe tourists. I have seen so many tombs and crypts and family vaultsthat I am ashamed to look an undertaker in the face. For three weeks Ihave tried to let on to pretend to make a bluff at being deeplyinterested in these open graves. Other people gushed about them and Iwas afraid that if I didn't trail along and show some sentimentalinterest they might suspect that I was from Iowa and was shy onsoulfulness. I'll say this much, however--I'm mighty glad I've seenthem, because now I'll never have to look at them again.
Egypt is something like the old settler--you'd like to roast him andcall him down, but you hate to jump on anything so venerable and weak.Egypt is so old that you get the headache trying to think back. Egypthad gone through forty changes of administration and was on the downgrade before Iowa was staked out.
The principal products of this country are insects, dust, guides, andfake curios. I got my share of each. I am glad I came, and I may wantto return some day, but not until I have worked the sand out of my earsand taken in two or three county fairs. I have been walking down themain aisle with my hat in my hand so long that now I am ready forsomething lively.
Americans are popular in Egypt, during business hours. Have not beenshowered with social attentions, but I am always comforted by thethought that the exclusive foreign set cannot say anything about methat I haven't already said about it. Of course, we could retaliate inproper fashion if we could lure the foreigners out to Iowa, but thatseems out of the question. They think Iowa is in South America.
I shall mail this letter and then chase it all the way home.
Give my love to everybody, whether I know them or not. Yours,
PEASLEY.
P.S.--Open some preserves.
Not a comprehensive review of the fruits of our journey and yet fairlyaccurate.
THE END
