Part 11 (2/2)
”You can give them away. They are very ornamental. Formerly my only customers were colleges and museums. Now I am selling to people who put them in private residences. Nothing sets off an Oriental apartment to better effect, or gives it more colour and atmosphere, as you might say, than a decorated mummy case.”
I told him I would not object to the ”colour,” but would draw the line at ”atmosphere.” He a.s.sured me that after a few thousand years the mortuary remains become as dry as a London newspaper and as odourless as a Congressional investigation.
I followed him into a large back room and saw two beautifully preserved specimens in their rigid overcoats being packed away for s.h.i.+pment to America, while others leaned against the wall in careless att.i.tudes.
What a grisly reflection! Here was a local potentate, let us say Ipekak II. of Hewgag--ruler of a province, boss of his party, proud owner of broad fields and grazing herds. When he died, 1400 B.C., and was escorted to his rock tomb by all the local secret societies, the military company, and a band of music, his friends lowered his embalmed remains into a deep pit and then put in a rock filling and cut hieroglyphics all over the place, telling of his wealth and social importance, and begging all future generations to regard the premises as sacred.
Some two thousand years later along comes a vandal in a cheap store suit and a cork helmet, engages Ipekak's own descendants to pry open the tomb and heave out the rock at fifteen cents per day, hauls the mummy into the daylight, and s.h.i.+ps it by luggage van to Cairo, where it is sold to a St. Paul man for $125!
Until I talked to the dealer I had no idea that mummies were so plentiful. In some parts of Egypt people go out and dig them up just as they would dig potatoes. The prices vary greatly, somewhat depending upon the state of preservation of the party of the first part and the character of the decorations on the case, but more particularly on account of the t.i.tle or historical importance of the once lamented.
For instance, a Rameses or Ptolemy cannot be touched for less than $1000. A prince, a trust magnate, or a military commander brings $150; the Governor of a city or the president of a theological seminary anywhere from $60 to $75. Within the last three years perfect specimens of humourist have been offered for as low as $18, and the dealer showed me one for $7.50--probably a tourist.
At Naples, proceeding eastward, one enters the land of Talk. The French are conversational and animated, but Southern Italy begins to show the real Oriental luxuriance of gab. A Neapolitan trying to sell three cents' worth of fish will make more noise than a whole Wanamaker establishment. The most commonplace and everyday form of dialogue calls for flas.h.i.+ng eyes, swaying body, and frantic gesticulations.
In front of a cafe in Naples Mr. Peasley became deeply interested in a conversation between two well-dressed men at a table near ours. At first we thought they were going to ”clinch” and fight it out, but then we saw that there was no real anger exhibited, but that apparently one was describing to the other some very thrilling experience. He waved his arms, struck at imaginary objects, made pinwheel movements with his fingers, and carried on generally in a most hysterical manner. Mr.
Peasley, all worked up, beckoned the head waiter, who had been talking to us in English.
”Look here,” he said confidentially, ”I want you to listen and tell me what those fellows are talking about. I can't catch a word they say, but as near as I can make out from the way they act that fellow with the goatee is describing some new kind of torpedo boat. It goes through the water at about thirty miles an hour, having three or four screw propellers. When it comes within striking distance of the enemy--bang! they cut her loose and the projectile goes whizzing to the mark, and when it meets with any resistance there is a big explosion and everything within a quarter of a mile is blown to flindereens.
Now, that's the plot, as near as I can follow it from watchin' that short guy make motions. You listen to them and tell me if I am right.”
The head waiter listened and then translated to us as follows:--”He is saying to his friend that he slept very well last evening and got up feeling good, but was somewhat annoyed at breakfast time because the egg was not cooked to suit him.”
”How about all these gymnastics?” asked the surprised Mr. Peasley.
”Why does he hop up and down, side step and feint and wiggle his fingers and all that monkey business?”
”Quite so,” replied the head waiter. ”He is describing the egg.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”_He is describing the egg._”]
What a people--to take five cents worth of cheap information and garland it with twenty dollars' worth of Delsarte and rhetoric!
Talk is one of the few things of which there is a superabundance in the Levant. In nearly all particulars the Arab is economical and abstemious. He eats sparingly and cheaply, wears just enough clothing to keep from violating the munic.i.p.al ordinances, smokes conservatively, so as to get the full value of his tobacco, and lives in a house which is furnished with three or four primitive utensils. But when it comes to language, he is the most reckless spendthrift in the world. He uses up large bales of conversation.
Suppose that three porters at a railway station are to take a trunk from a car and put it on a truck and wheel it out to a cab. The talk made necessary by this simple operation would fill several pages in the Congressional Record. All three talk incessantly, each telling the others what to do and finding fault because they don't do it his way.
One seems to be superintendent, the second is foreman, and the third is boss.
Endless disputes of a most vivid character rage among the donkey boys and peddlers who a.s.semble near the hotels and lie in wait for victims.
”What do they find to talk about?” is the question that comes to one every time he hears the babel of excited voices. And while we are smiling at their childish tantrums they are splitting their sides over new stories relating to that strange being from the antipodes, the barbarian with the mushroom helmet who exudes money at every pore, who keeps himself bundled in unnecessary clothes and rides out to the desert every day to stand in the baking sun and solemnly contemplate a broken column and a heap of rubbish. Truly it all depends on the point of view.
We held back the Pyramids and the Sphinx so as to make our visit to them the cap sheaf of the stay in Cairo. As for sightseeing, most of the time we just rambled up one street and down another, looking in shop windows, watching the workmen kill time with their prehistoric implements, smelling the bazaars, dodging dog carts, donkeys and camels, and having a fine time generally.
Aimless excursions are the best, after all. It is more fun to drift around a new town and rub up against the people than to deliver yourself, body and soul, over to a guide. In Egypt the guide is called a dragoman. He puts on airs and has an inside pocket bulging with testimonials from people who were so glad to get out of his clutches that they willingly perjured themselves by giving him half-hearted certificates of good character. While you are in the hands of the dragoman you feel like a dumb, driven cow. You follow the fluttering nights.h.i.+rt and the tall red fez of this arch villain for hours at a time, not knowing where you are going, or why. He takes absolute charge of you, either by making specious representations or boldly a.s.suming authority, and when you start out to visit the famous mosque of old Midullah Oblongahta or some other defunct celebrity you finish up in a junk shop for the sale of antiques, all of which are personally guaranteed by the dragoman, because he is a silent partner in the business.
In many countries, especially at times when the traveller must condense his itinerary, the guide is a necessary evil, and in Egypt he is supposed to be a sort of ornamental body guard. We found that we could wander about without being haltered and led, so we spent pleasant hours in the Mouski, which is the native shopping street, and also we went to the race meeting and saw native horses and ponies, carrying 140 to 160 pounds each, saunter around a half-mile track while a large number of English in Mardi Gras costumes drank gallons of tea and simulated a polite interest.
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