DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27180#0228
PYRAMID AND TEMPLE
with lights. People keep arriving. Luxor is full. We have
trouble in getting used to it and wish we were back at Assuan.
The only thing that reminds us of it is a sakiyeh near at hand
with precisely the same tone. We always have to pass it
when we take the footpath along the upper shore towards
the esplanade. An ox drives the wheel; and you can only get
past when he is at the inner side of the circle.
Our windows look on to the overgrown garden at another
hotel which is not in use. Achmed, the snakecharmer, gives
his demonstrations in this garden for ten piastres a person.
He goes round and conjures up the beasts. If he smells a
snake - for it seems that he tracks them with his nose — he
sets to work energetically and raises his voice. The formulas
are hammered into the snake; if it has any ears at all you can
well believe that the military tone of command gets across
right enough. In the meanwhile he gropes about in the hole
and fishes out a cobra quite a yard and a half long. He lets
it run where it will; then at the word of command it stands
up straight like a soldier. As for the scorpion it never moved
when he shouted at it, but let him catch hold of it and lay
quite still in his hand like a sleeping child. Its sting was a
pretty blond colour. Afterwards he laid hands on a horned
snake, for which even he felt a certain respect, seeing that its
bite can dispose of a bull as easily as winking. He hung it
round his neck, and at his command it jumped into the
basket with the cobra. So did the scorpion. Herr Alborg
from Hamburg maintained that to judge by this display the
garden must be pretty well full of such creatures, and that it
was enough to give us cold feet, as they say in Hamburg, our
room being so close. We fell into a longish conversation on
this subject and on the restaurant of that late lamented
Hamburg genius, little Pfordte. I dreamed of snakes that
night. Our room is on the ground floor. The old walls that
divide us from the snake garden are not necessarily im-
penetrable, and we always sleep with the windows open. It
208
with lights. People keep arriving. Luxor is full. We have
trouble in getting used to it and wish we were back at Assuan.
The only thing that reminds us of it is a sakiyeh near at hand
with precisely the same tone. We always have to pass it
when we take the footpath along the upper shore towards
the esplanade. An ox drives the wheel; and you can only get
past when he is at the inner side of the circle.
Our windows look on to the overgrown garden at another
hotel which is not in use. Achmed, the snakecharmer, gives
his demonstrations in this garden for ten piastres a person.
He goes round and conjures up the beasts. If he smells a
snake - for it seems that he tracks them with his nose — he
sets to work energetically and raises his voice. The formulas
are hammered into the snake; if it has any ears at all you can
well believe that the military tone of command gets across
right enough. In the meanwhile he gropes about in the hole
and fishes out a cobra quite a yard and a half long. He lets
it run where it will; then at the word of command it stands
up straight like a soldier. As for the scorpion it never moved
when he shouted at it, but let him catch hold of it and lay
quite still in his hand like a sleeping child. Its sting was a
pretty blond colour. Afterwards he laid hands on a horned
snake, for which even he felt a certain respect, seeing that its
bite can dispose of a bull as easily as winking. He hung it
round his neck, and at his command it jumped into the
basket with the cobra. So did the scorpion. Herr Alborg
from Hamburg maintained that to judge by this display the
garden must be pretty well full of such creatures, and that it
was enough to give us cold feet, as they say in Hamburg, our
room being so close. We fell into a longish conversation on
this subject and on the restaurant of that late lamented
Hamburg genius, little Pfordte. I dreamed of snakes that
night. Our room is on the ground floor. The old walls that
divide us from the snake garden are not necessarily im-
penetrable, and we always sleep with the windows open. It
208