QUEER THINGS ABOUT EGYPT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 119, 27 August 1910, Page 9

QUEER THINGS ABOUT EGYPT.

Mr. Douglas .Sladen's latest book of his "Quoit'' series '"Queer Things About Egypt" —is a delightful volume, full of good stories on native customs, eccentricities, and manner of living. Now and then lie has a good-natured dig at the weaknesses of British residents and visitors. While the book makes no pretensions to be a weighty, authoritative work, such as one is accustomed to turn to when requiring solid information about a people or a country, it is nevertheless invaluable to the student of Eastern life, and particularly to the tourist who thinks of visiting Egypt. To read Mr. Sladen's "Queer Things" is to make the stranger familiar at once with much of the mystery ami complexity of the new world spread before him. Mr. Sladen, having travelled in most parts of the world, sees with the eyes of a trained observer, and he is a master in the art of making his readers see things as he does. He chats with us pleasantly about the Egyptians from the human point of view. The tales are ot everyday life-—the first part of the book being entirely taken up with "anecdotes illustrating the Egyptian character." Perhaps the most amusilig chapter in the book is the first—"English as she is Wrote in Egypt." Here is a delicious sample:—

Suhang (Kism, Upp. Egypt). At the First of Apri, 1900. Messrs Trollope, Sons and Co., Bristol. Gentlemen, — ■Wherefore have you not send me that sope—l am order from you. His it because you think my money is not so good as nobody else? Dam you, Trollup, Sons and Co., wherefore jpave you not send me the sope—sent it at once and oblige. Your humble servant, Hassan, Hassen el Kamel. After I write this my wife have found the sope under the counter. Another gem, which, says Mr. Sladen, shows the cloven foot of the Levantine, is as follows: — Lady Cr. ißihodes, Esq., City, — Will you kindly to see the coal, what kind of coal I send to your honorable hausi, and how is Criblet ? Because 1 saw the report yesterday that the coal which I supply with slake, never me, lady, just kindly to see. But the cook came many times, ho asked me for bakshish. I not give to him as I sell at very low prices. Yours. f C. Caravassilis. P.S.—A cheque from your goodselves for settlement of your bill will oblige me too much. —Yours truly, C. Caravassilis.

The author has much to say on the humors of the sufTragi, the Egyptian servant. This individual is, apparently, a curious mixture. One never knows quite how to take him. He can ! be useful to an extraordinary degree, providing you only have one. If there are two suffrages, they each leave all the work to the other. "He can clean hoots well; he is noted for the resplendence of his own. But he often kills two -birds with one stone by leaving yours uncleaned. The hotel people, he says, will not give him any stuff to clean tiiem with. You either expostulate with the manager, or, if you are idle, give him money to buy some. He avoids blaine, and lays up a store of polish, black or brown, for his own use, or sells it back to the shop. That i"s ■ one of his ways of getting bakshish. He is not so ill-mannered as to ask for it, and is politely grateful for the smallest mercies in this direction. "If you know the ropes, you hire your servant before you hire your house, just as the Japanese always begin a house by 'building the roof. The reason of this is that the 'Egyptian servant, has a perfect genius for finding fault with anything that you are going to hire or going to buy. "Make him examine everything in it, and point out its faults. It may take something off the rent, and you hear his objections beforehand. The bouse is always a little .worse than the house you occupied before, even if he has never seen it. He refers you to take a house of eight rooms and leave most of them unfurnished rather than take a house of three roms and furnish them well. He 'has to make face before

his fellow servants." ! Donkey-boys have a genius in another I direction:— J "Ramidge once had. a camera fasten- j ed to the back of a donkey. The donkey | had the usual hoy with it. When Ramidge wanted to use the camera, he found that the roll of films had been turned right round till it was all used up. The boy said he had seen the donkey 7 biting at the saddle, and it must have caught the handle for turning the films in its teeth!" ... "(Perkins was very gentle with their B( v rberine; Berkeley threw the eggs at him if they were not sufficiently cooked, I or opened the teapot and shook its contents over him when he made the tea i with lukewarm water. ... As it was, foe adored Berkeley, and would have licked the blacking off his boots if he had not thought it more adulatory to put all Perkins' blacking on Berkeley's boots." One has to be very acute on doing business with Egyptians, who, says the author, are horn cheats:— "One great difficulty in having contracts witth Egyptians is that they sign a document with their seal instead of a signature. Afterwards, if they don't like it, they destroy the seal with which the document was sealed, and have a new one made tojfcally different. This happened to E. When thfe man repudiated the contract, R. went to the village police-house, and had an interview with the Omdeh. He took the man who had witnessed the seal with him, and they testified that the seal had been made in their presence. The Egyptian was not to be to be allowed to look at the document, and when it was hartded to him tore it up, whereupon the Omdeh sagely observed that as the document was destroyed nothing could be done."

Mr. Slade* gossips in this delightful way on almost every phase of native, tourist, and "resident" life in Egypt, and then devotes mamv chapters to descriptions of the wonders to be seen there. He barely touches the great problem of government; though, his preface contains the following significant note: "If the English could run Egypt on the same principles as the French ran Tunis all would be well. Firm paternal government is what the Egyptian requires. He is not irreoonciliable, he is not keen, he is not pertinacious; he is merely demontrative; he has a passion for demonstrations, and is a born orator. In this book I do not conewn myself with him, though Epypt is on the brink of a revolution unless the nettle is firmly grasped."