The reader, I must again express a hope, will pardon the length of
these descriptions,-my object is to show him how business is carried on
in these hot countries. Business generally. For had I been, not
Abdullah the Darwaysh, but a rich native merchant, it would have been
[p.28]the same. How many complaints of similar treatment have I heard
in different parts of the Eastern world! and how little can one realise
them without having actually experienced the evil! For the future I
shall never see a "nigger" squatting away half a dozen mortal hours in
a broiling sun patiently waiting for something or for some one, without
a lively remembrance of my own cooling of the calces at the
custom-house of Alexandria.
At length, about the end of May (1853) all was ready. Not without a
feeling of regret I left my little room among the white myrtle blossoms
and the rosy oleander flowers with the almond smell. I kissed with
humble ostentation my good host's hand in presence of his servants-he
had become somewhat unpleasantly anxious, of late, to induce in me the
true Oriental feeling, by a slight administration of the bastinado-I
bade adieu to my patients, who now amounted to about fifty, shaking
hands with all meekly and with religious equality of attention; and,
mounted in a "trap" which looked like a cross between a wheel-barrow
and a dog-cart, drawn by a kicking, jibbing, and biting mule, I set out
for the steamer, the "Little Asthmatic."