the boat i obtained at alexandria, was made like a keel boat. the cabin consisted of four bed rooms with a saloon in the centre. this cabin occupied the centre of the hull of the keel, but it left space outside all around, and more at each end than at the sides. the fourteen arabs and one captain, called reice, would either be pulling the boat all day, or managing the sail to advantage. when the breeze blew up the nile, they would hoist the sail and take advantage of the wind. we paid them for the boat, men, and their own food, 250 pounds for the trip, but if the trip was not made in seventy days, and it is 800 miles, we then had to pay them so much for each day over, besides this, every few days the reice would come into the cabin for bucksheesh; we were annoyed at every stopping place for bucksheesh. the indian of north america would translate bucksheesh “gim e money.”
our cookery was at the bow of the boat, a small space of four feet square, and our cook was an italian of rome. we paid him two dollars a day, because he was a european, and could not work for less, and by the way, arabs cannot cook, and will not, for any price, cook such food as we had. our best meat was smoked pork, and they detest this meat. nearly every man on our boat was named achmit, or mahommed; but the reice’s name was marmound. the reice was a good old man, i have often felt as if it would afford me great pleasure to sketch his profile, when, along about noonday, he would stop our boat without consulting us, to have his head shaved. the head shavers at all the little dirt villages, would keep a look out for boats, and be ready on the bank, to shave the captain’s head, and make one cent.
the speculators of the nile could always be found on the banks at the villages, waiting to sell a goat, a chicken, or an egg. when we would stop a minute or two at a village, every few seconds, women or men would come in great haste to sell, each one trying to beat the other, some dates, cloves, or chickens. some places, when the boat was shoving out, some great, fat and lazy arab would come blowing and panting to the edge of the nile with one single egg, that he had been waiting for the hen to lay. one man, to make up a dozen, squeezed an old hen until her egg bag emitted a yelk, which i refused to take as an egg. one arab brought us some young crocodiles he had dug out of their nest, even while the old one was chasing him. to believe what an arab says when trying to sell anything, would be a sublime display of the most profound ignorance a man could be guilty of. i have seen arabs, however, professing an artful talent that i have no reason to believe can be found in the whole united states. i have reference to what is called snake charming.
yesterday an arab came aboard with a basket on his arm, and he was literally covered or clothed with live snakes. they were crawling over his shoulders, arms, breast, and whole body in general, and his head was an emblem of discord. serpents looked in all directions, while their forked tongues signaled their wrath, like little flashes of lightning. this was a “snake charmer,” and we concluded we would test his skill, and gave him a quarter to go to the mountains and call out of the rocks some of his prey. having arrived, he sang a melancholy strain like that of a dove in spring time, occasionally raising his voice like a lonely crane, and after ten or fifteen minutes of this proceeding, brought some three serpents from the crevices of the rock, and quietly walked to them and they crawled on his arm. he offered to guarantee one crawling on me without biting, but i was not willing to make any contract to that effect. he returned to the boat with us, and one of our arabs, who was a very incredulous man, told us that the “rascal” was possessed of no power at all over the wild serpents, but had placed these serpents there before, and that they were taught to come when called. but this arab of ours was jealous of the interesting entertainment we enjoyed. the charmer knew not where we were taking him until we told him to call the snakes. the reice of our boat was afraid the charmer would get too much bucksheesh, and called on us in our cabin to inform us, that some months before he had seen this man with the same serpents, and i asked him how he distinguished the serpents, and he said, “by their color.” he gave me to understand, that though we were very learned this rascal could fool us, but with him it was very different. he said that “old marmoud’s beard was white, but few men knew more than he did.” he appealed to our generosity, to keep some of the bucksheesh, “don’t want the rascal to get all the bucksheesh.”
at night the jackalls are quite noisy. two came within fifty yards of our boat, and played their howling notes some time. no arab takes notice of jackalls, foxes, or crocodiles. i went into six sugar houses on the nile, and all owned by the pacha. no man can show his money here without getting it borrowed. the man who refuses to loan it to the pacha when asked, cannot live. a wise man and his money must part.
