sneers, chidings, jokes, proverbial sayings,
valedictions, greetings, and other forms of speech,
in the language of the Thousand and One
Nights, I cannot always understand what the
person who answers me says: more especially
if the reply be couched in rhetorical language,
or be much interlarded with quotations from the
Koran.

Abool Hoosayn went on:

"One day, English officer come to my master
and say, 'My son sick—he go to Bombay. Let
this young man, Abool Hoosayn, who waiteth at
thy table, go with my son to Bombay.' Several
hundred rupees, I go. When I get Bombay,
young officer say, 'Go—steamer, bumboat,
native boat—any way, go back to Cairo!' Give
me several hundred rupees—whatever way I
like. I go to steamer and find it; one hundred
rupee. I say, 'No, I go native boat—own
country boat—cotton boat, for thirty rupee.'
(Here he laughs cunningly.) 'I pay shall for
myself, and shall for my wife, and go back in
my country boat.' One night in Red Sea, I go
sleeps, and boat strike rock, and boat break.
Captain, twenty men, go down-stairs—all kill;
five men get into dinghy and beat all rest who
try to get overboard. Beat me too, dam rascal
—bad men! I see plank, and get shore."
(Here Abool Hoosayn goes through a vigorous
pantomime of swimming.) "All Gibbel desert—
three days without food—then beard grow white;
three days expect Bedouins meet and kill us;
third day come to Bedowee village—just as I
was born was I then. Arab man not all bad
men. They give me bread—give me milk. If
I been rich, they kill me and cut throat; now I
poor—strange man Bedowee—they put me on
camel, and take me three days to Aden. Then
I wait one year on English officer—earn one
hundred rupee—then take own country boat,
and come back Cairo. Two year after, young
English officer—stout—well—come to Cairo—
hear how boat break, and box go down-stairs—
give me five pound. That, effendi, is how
come white beard."

Abool Hoosayn is a little spare young-old
man, with a lantern-jawed yellow face, big black
eyebrows, a wondering querulous manner, a
cat-like sneeze, and a tormenting way of saying,
with both hands raised, "What you think?"
He wears a curry-coloured jacket, with a hood
in cold weather, an immense red and yellow
Syrian sash which, unfolded, is some six yards
long, full black breeches that swaddle down a
foot below his knees, a red tarboosh bound with
a red and rhubarb-yellow handkerchief; he has
a manner at once fretful, impertinent, self-
important, fussy, and fantastic. He is a great
adviser of bragging guns being shot off at night-
time, during desert encampment; but I see no
signs of "light" in his shabby vulturine
features, though I cannot fail to detect some greed,
much love of tyranny, and some blustering
poltroonery. With him, "directly" means that
you must wait ten minutes; and "all right,"
all right for the dragoman's interest. His one
thought is his own profit, I never saw him
wash, nor does he attend to any Mussulman
rules of prayer. At noonday he is cleaning
knives, and at sunset he is serving soup. He
smiles on me till he gets my certificate; but
woe to the miserable drudge who is in the
power of Abool Hoosayn, whose hand is velvet
to the rich, but iron to the poor. To see him in
his grandeur, see him straddle his little warped
legs and abuse an Arab guide! The word
"kelb" (dog) occurs every three seconds; and
"son of a Jew," every two minutes. When
a poor fellow dropped his saddle-bags in the
great oasis, I saw him with mine own eyes draw
back like a specially vicious asp, and then spit
in the poor Egyptian's eyes, who, with the
sufferance that is the badge of all his tribe,
calmly bent forward his old shorn skull, and
wiped off the insult with the blue rag that he
called his sleeve.

Abool Hoosayn fervently believes in the truth
of the Egyptian proverb, "The stick came
down from heaven," and he has no wish that
such a divine gift should be allowed to moulder
away unused. I use the word stick
metaphorically for anything by which a blow may be
given.

I was at the Suez station, waiting for my
trunk and carpet-bag to appear under the care of
Abool Hoosayn, who, presently arriving, left the
luggage in the care of a poor old Arab, and ran
to procure me my ticket and a draught of water.
In five minutes he returned, and, to his utter
wrath, observed four other fellahs carrying off
my trunk between them in their peaceful way
to the railway carriage. The old Arab still
adhering with smiling obstinacy to his former
charge, Abool's blood at once boiled over; he
ran, and using his mildest form of argument
with fellahs, he hit the grave and reverend
signior a dreadful punch on the head. I heard
his head sound against the hard bag, and saw it
bound from it. At once convinced of the infamy
of his conduct, the old fellah bent his head,
shouldered the bag, and trotted off quietly in
the right direction. Abool Hoosayn smiled at
the force of his arguments.

At another time, I was on a boat excursion
of several weeks on the Nile. The second
day, to Abool's infinite rage, our cook, Ibrahim,
an old decrepit Mussulman, was taken ill. The
first day, he coughed his life nearly out; the
next day, fairly overcome by a cold north wind
(for it can be cold, and can rain too, in Egypt),
he laid down his favourite stewpan with a
sigh, and rehearsing a small Charles-the-Fifth
sort of abdication, crept down into the hold,
closed the planks over him, and lay there twenty-
four hours.

My friend Abool's face grew black as night
when he had that day with his own august
hands to clean boots and scour pans; but when.
it came to the preparing of soup and the intricate
fabrication of sweetmeats, his temper failed
him altogether, and he burst forth a flagrant,
intolerable, volcanic, fire-spitting old tyrant.

I quietly asked him how Ibrahim was, and
whether a cup of tea would do him good?