CHAPTER II.
“ ’Mongst them were several Englishmen of pith,
Sixteen named Thompson and nineteen named Smith.”
D on J u an,
Mahomet, Achmet, and Ali, axe equivalent to Smith,
Brown, and Thompson. Accordingly, of my few
attendants, my dragoman was Mahomet, and my
principal guide was Achmet; and subsequently I
had a number of Alis. Mahomet was a regular Cairo
dragoman, a native of Dongola, almost black, but
exceedingly tenacious regarding his shade of colour,
which he declared to be light brown. He spoke very
bad English, was excessively conceited, and irascible
to a degree. No pasha was. so bumptious or overbearing
to his inferiors, but to me and to his mistress
while in Cairo he had the gentleness of the dove, and
I had engaged him at 51, per month to accompany
me to the White Nile. Men change with circumstances,;
climate affects the health and temper; the
sleek and well-fed dog is amiable, but he would be
vicious when thin and hungry; the man in luxury
and the man in need are not equally angelic. Now
Mahomet was one of those dragomen who are accustomed
to the civilized expeditions of the British
c h a p . it.] THE CAIRO DRAGOMAN. 2 7
tourist to the first or second cataract, in a Nile boat
replete with conveniences and luxuries, upon which
the dragoman is monarch supreme, a whale among
the minnows, who rules the vessel, purchases daily a
host of unnecessary supplies, upon which he clears his
profit, until he returns to Cairo with his pockets filled
sufficiently to support him until the following Nile
season. The short three months’ harvest, from November
until February, fills his granary for the year.
Under such circumstances the temper should be
angelic. But times had changed : the luxurious
Mahomet had left the comfortable Nile boat at
Korosko, and he had crossed the burning desert upon
a jolting camel; he had left the well-known route
where the dragoman was supreme, and he found
himself among people who treated him in the light of
a common servant. “ A change came o’er the spirit
of his dream; ” Mahomet was no longer a great man,
and his temper changed with circumstances; in fact,
Mahome't became unbearable, and still he was absolutely
necessary, as he was The tongue of the expedition
until we should accomplish Arabic. To him
the very idea of exploration was an absurdity ; he had
never believed in it from the first, and he now became
impressed with the fact that he was positively committed
to an undertaking that would end most likely
in his death, if not in terrible difficulties; he determined,
under the circumstances, to make himself as
disagreeable as possible to all parties. With this
amiable resolution Mahomet adopted a physical in-*