Arab passengers on the Nile steamer. Except for their prayers, they scarcely move once a day
Arab passengers on the Nile steamer. Except for their prayers, they scarcely move once a day
Arab passengers on the Nile steamer. Except for their prayers, they scarcely move once a day
The Greek patriarch whose secretary I became—temporarily
The Greek patriarch whose secretary I became—temporarily
The Greek patriarch whose secretary I became—temporarily
“Oh,” smiled the mudir, “that will offer no difficulty. It is a government railway and I can give you a note to the A. T. M., requesting him to refund you the price of the ticket. On the whole, after what you have said, I think I had better refuse you a pass.”
He tore up the blank slowly and, pulling out an official pad, wrote an order to the railway official. I tucked it in my pocket and returned to the hotel.
“What’s the matter?” cried the Armenian, as I sat down with sorrowful face in a corner of the pool room.
“The mudir has refused me a pass to Khartum,” I sighed.
“Refused you a pass?” echoed the Armenian, turning to the Greeks that had gathered around us.
Cries of sympathy sounded on all sides.
“Never mind,” purred the interpreter, patting me on the shoulder, “Khartum isn’t much and the patriarch will get along somehow without you.”
“Yes, but there’s no work here to earn my fare down the river.”
The remark precipitated a long debate. At last, the interpreter turned to me with a smiling face.
“We have it!” he cried. “As the mudir has refused you permission, perhaps he will refund you the price of the ticket if you go and ask him? That will be enough—”
“But the ticket isn’t mine,” I protested.
“Not yours?” cried the Armenian, “what nonsense! Of course it’s yours. Whose else is it? The patriarch didn’t pay you anything else for your work! Certainly, it’s your ticket.”
He took it from the sad-eyed hotel keeper and thrust it into my hand. “Now run over to the mudiria and ask the governor if he can’t fix it so you can get the money back.”
I ran—past the mudir’s office and into that of the traffic manager. He was a young Englishman of the type of those who, according to Pia, “have nothing much to do with their money.”
“Do you think,” he asked, as he handed me the price of the ticket, “that two quid will carry you down to Port Saïd?”
“Sure,” I replied.
“I’m afraid it won’t,” he went on; “better have another quid.”
He thrust his hand into his pocket and drew out a handful of gold.
“No, I’m fixed all right,” I protested.
“Go ahead, man; take it,” he insisted, holding out a sovereign. “Many a one I’ve had shoved on me when I was down and out.”
“No, I’m all right,” I repeated.
“Well, here,” said the manager; “I’m going to make you out a check on my bank in Cairo for a couple of quid. I think you’ll need it. If you don’t, chuck it in the canal and no harm done. We chaps never want to see a man on the rocks, you know.”
He filled out the check as he talked, and, in spite of my protest, tucked it into one of my pockets. I acknowledged my thanks; but months afterward I scattered the pieces of that bit of paper on the highway of another clime.
Late that night I departed from Wady Halfa, reaching Assuan on Monday morning. On the following day I boarded the steamerCleopatra, of the Cook Line, as a deck passenger, and drifted lazily down the Nile for five days, landing here and there with the tourists of the upper deck to visit a temple or a mud village. At the Asile Rudolph, Cap Stevenson welcomed me with open arms, but “the union” was wrapped in mourning. Pia, the erudite, had departed, no man knew when nor whither. The end of the Cairo season was at hand. All its social favorites were turning their faces towards other lands. I called on the superintendent of railways to remind him of his promise, and, armed with a pass to Port Saïd, bade the capital farewell.