“But you took up General McClellan's boat, and that is large.”
“Very true, Effendi; but why the howadji no come when Genel Clemen come, ten days ago?”
“Such a long boat never went up. Why you no come two months ago when the river was high?” This sort of talk goes on for half an hour. Then the other sheykh speaks:—“What is the use of talking all this stuff to Mohammed Abd-el-Atti Effendi; he knows all about it.”
“Well, it is 'finish',” says Abd-el-Atti.
When the long negotiation is concluded, the reïs is introduced into the cabin to pay his respects to the howadji; he seats himself with dignity and salutes the ladies with a watchful self-respect. The reïs is a sedate Nubian, with finely cut features but a good many shades darker than would be fellowshipped by the Sheltering Wings Association in America, small feet, and small hands with long tapering fingers that confess an aristocratic exemption from manual labor. He wears a black gown, and a white turban; a camel's hair scarf distinguishes him from the vulgar. This sheykh boasts I suppose as ancient blood as runs in any aristocratic veins, counting his ancestors back in unbroken succession to the days of the Prophet at least, and not improbably to Ishmael. That he wears neither stockings nor slippers does not detract from his simple dignity. Our conversation while he pays his visit is confined to the smoking of a cigar and some well-meant grins and smiles of mutual good feeling.
While the morning hours pass, we have time to gather all the knowledge of Assouan that one needs for the enjoyment of life in this world. It is an ordinary Egyptian town of sunbaked brick, brown, dusty and unclean, with shabby bazaars containing nothing, and full of importunate beggars and insatiable traders in curiosities of the upper country. Importunate venders beset the traveler as soon as he steps ashore, offering him all manner of trinkets which he is eager to purchase and doesn't know what to do with when he gets them. There are crooked, odd-shaped knives and daggers, in ornamental sheaths of crocodile skin, and savage spears with great round hippopotamus shields from Kartoom or Abyssinia; jagged iron spears and lances and ebony clubs from Darfoor; cunning Nubian silver-work, bracelets and great rings that have been worn by desert camel-drivers; moth-eaten ostrich feathers; bows and arrows tipped with flint from the Soudan, necklaces of glass and dirty leather charms (containing words from the Koran); broad bracelets and anklets cut out of big tusks of elephants and traced in black, rude swords that it needs two hands to swing; bracelets of twisted silver cord and solid silver as well; earrings so large that they need to be hitched to a strand of the hair for support; nose-rings of brass and silver and gold, as large as the earrings; and “Nubian costumes” for women—a string with leather fringe depending to tie about the loins—suggestions of a tropical life under the old dispensation.