DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4393#0089
BEDRESHA YN TO MINIEH. 71
the mosque become gradually crowded with lookers on.
Some three or four cloaked and bearded men have chairs
brought and sit gravely smoking their chibouques on the
bank above, enjoying the entertainment. Meanwhile the
water-carriers come and go, filling their goat-skins at the
landing-place; donkeys and camels are brought down to
drink; girls in dark-blue gowns and coarse black veils come
with huge water-jars laid sidewise upon their heads and,
having filled and replaced them upright, walk away with
stately steps, as if each ponderous vessel were a crown.
So the day passes. Driven back again and again, but
still resolute, our sailors, by dint of sheer doggedness, get
us round the bad corner at last. The Bagstones follows
suit a little later; and we both moor about a quarter of a
mile above the town. Then follows a night of adventures.
Again our guards sleep profoundly; but the bad characters
of 13eni Suef are very wide awake. One gentleman, actu-
ated no doubt by the friendliest motives, pays a midnight
visit to the Bagstones; but being detected, chased and fired
at, escapes by jumping overboard. Our turn comes about
two hours later, when the writer, happening to be awake,
hears a man swim softly round the PhilsB. To strike a
light and frighten everybody into sudden activity is the
work of a moment. The whole boat is instantly in an up>-
ro.ar. Lanterns are lighted on deck; a patrol of sailors is
set; Talhamy loads his gun; and the thief slips away in
the dark like a fish.
The guards, of course, slept sweetly through it all.
Honest fellows! They were paid a shilling a night to do
it and they had nothing on their minds.
Having lodged a formal complaint next morning against
the inhabitants of the town, we received a visit from a sal-
low personage clad in a long black robe and a voluminous
white turban. This was the chief of the guards. He
smoked a great many pipes ; drank numerous cups of
coffee; listened to all we had to say ; looked wise ; and
finally suggested that the number of our guards should be
doubled.
I ventured to object that if they slept unanimously forty
would not be of much more use than four. AVhereupon
he rose, drew himself to his full height, touched his beard
and said with a magnificent melodramatic air: "If they
sleep they shall be bastinadoed till they die \"
the mosque become gradually crowded with lookers on.
Some three or four cloaked and bearded men have chairs
brought and sit gravely smoking their chibouques on the
bank above, enjoying the entertainment. Meanwhile the
water-carriers come and go, filling their goat-skins at the
landing-place; donkeys and camels are brought down to
drink; girls in dark-blue gowns and coarse black veils come
with huge water-jars laid sidewise upon their heads and,
having filled and replaced them upright, walk away with
stately steps, as if each ponderous vessel were a crown.
So the day passes. Driven back again and again, but
still resolute, our sailors, by dint of sheer doggedness, get
us round the bad corner at last. The Bagstones follows
suit a little later; and we both moor about a quarter of a
mile above the town. Then follows a night of adventures.
Again our guards sleep profoundly; but the bad characters
of 13eni Suef are very wide awake. One gentleman, actu-
ated no doubt by the friendliest motives, pays a midnight
visit to the Bagstones; but being detected, chased and fired
at, escapes by jumping overboard. Our turn comes about
two hours later, when the writer, happening to be awake,
hears a man swim softly round the PhilsB. To strike a
light and frighten everybody into sudden activity is the
work of a moment. The whole boat is instantly in an up>-
ro.ar. Lanterns are lighted on deck; a patrol of sailors is
set; Talhamy loads his gun; and the thief slips away in
the dark like a fish.
The guards, of course, slept sweetly through it all.
Honest fellows! They were paid a shilling a night to do
it and they had nothing on their minds.
Having lodged a formal complaint next morning against
the inhabitants of the town, we received a visit from a sal-
low personage clad in a long black robe and a voluminous
white turban. This was the chief of the guards. He
smoked a great many pipes ; drank numerous cups of
coffee; listened to all we had to say ; looked wise ; and
finally suggested that the number of our guards should be
doubled.
I ventured to object that if they slept unanimously forty
would not be of much more use than four. AVhereupon
he rose, drew himself to his full height, touched his beard
and said with a magnificent melodramatic air: "If they
sleep they shall be bastinadoed till they die \"