Part 12

CROCODILE HARD-BOILED EGGS Sauce a la Queen Hat-shep-set

BREAST OF THE ONE-LEGGED PINK STORK Stuffed with Baby Sausages

BROILED SCARABS ON BUTTERED TOAST Sauce de la Pyramide

BRIE de BAGDAD Foil cases, Crimean vintage '34

BENI-HASSAN DATES

ALLIGATOR PEARS

CAFE a la BWANA TUMBO From the Wady Halfa bean

Wine SAMIAN FIZZ

Music By the "FLOWER BUDS OF CAIRO"

Decorations By the BEGUM MACCUDDYLEEKI, period of Akbar the Great

The De Cossons lived in the suburbs, about two miles out on the road to the Pyramids, in a detached place without a street or a number, and quite hard to find when the sun had set. My hostess had prepared an elaborate map in two colors, red and blue, showing where I was to go and what I was to do and say after crossing the great steel bridge that spans the Nile. Armed with this formidable document, I went to the noble bandit who controls the carriage service in front of Shepheard's, and in a confidential whisper explained the map and the circumstances to him, at the same time slipping into his extended, yawning paw a wad of bakshish. I stipulated that I must have a driver who understood at least some English. He made a great show of grasping the intricacies of the map and the instructions that went with it, and presently, with a wild gleam in his eye, as if he had found a sure way to his "graft," he announced that he was ready and willing to take all responsibility. He had an official, high-backed chair on the sidewalk and asked me to use it till he returned. Then darting into the darkness, he quickly found a man (who looked like the First Murderer in Macbeth) on whom he could depend to rob me and divide the spoils with him. Dressed in his flowing oriental robes as Cairo's most abandoned criminal, he shook me warmly by the hand and whispered, as I stepped into the carriage:

"I have arranged everything."

I had a sufficient glimmering of what was going on to meekly pipe to him:

"Yes, I haven't the slightest doubt of it."

We started out at a brisk pace which soon relaxed into a funereal jog, and went on and on through narrow, squalid streets till we reached the Nile. Although I had given myself an extra hour for emergencies, I became impatient and asked him:

"But where is the big bridge with the bronze sphinxes on it that we are to cross?" He sadly wailed in reply:

"Ah, sahib, it ees so hard to find eet in the dark!"

In a burst of sarcastic anger, I shouted at him:

"Well, get off and light a match, and maybe you'll hit it by accident!" Assuming with an innocent look that I had spoken seriously, he took me at my word, jumped off his perch, lit a match and peered all round him. Then I got "real" angry, and told him De Cosson Bey kept a professional torture chamber, and that I would have him ground to sausage meat if he trifled with me another moment. Well knowing the impotence of my "hot air" blast, he simply smiled and took up his burthen of "finding" the bridge. This he soon accomplished, as it was about as easy to find as a saloon in the "Great White Way." The instructions accompanying the map stated that the Maison Antonion was on the left of the Pyramid Road after three crossroads had been passed. I began to look out for and count the roads, so when we had crossed two and were approaching a third I halted the Jehu and said:

"This is the third road; turn down here."

"No, sahib, eet is de private entrance to Hunter Pasha's palace, an' he keep de mos' wicket dogs you ever see in awl yo' life."

So on we went till I began to realize that the kidnapper was trying to take me out to the Pyramids for a late dinner with the Sphinx. It was clear moonlight and I saw an English lady walking along the road. I tried to have the driver stop, but he pretended that he did not understand me, so I jumped out and, profusely apologizing to the lady, explained my emergency. She said:

"Why, you are a mile past De Cosson Bey's place: there it is with the flagstaff on the tower."

Then she had a heart-to-heart talk in Arabic with my friend and we returned briskly to the "third road." I halted the procession for a settlement about fifty yards from the house, well knowing that trouble was coming in pyramids, and feeling that I did not wish to assault the ears of my hosts with the clash which was now inevitable and which would undoubtedly contain a large percentage of language that could hardly be called diplomatic. He demanded about ten times the regular fare. I protested, but he explained that after sunset all fares were double and charged by the hour, at that; and that when the Nile had been crossed the driver had the privilege of fixing the fare according to the circumstances. This vested right, he claimed, had not been disputed since his ancestors had driven Napoleon out to the battle of the Pyramids a century ago. I could not deny his statement as I had not been among those present, but I reduced the settlement to a compromise by threatening to spring on him the Hessian troops that De Cosson Bey retained for such occasions. Then we drove up to the house as genially as if we had been long parted relatives, and I supposed we held the secrets of the passage of arms between ourselves. But I was mistaken, for I noticed at dinner that my hosts smiled knowingly at each other as if they had some amusing thought in common. When I could stand this no longer I asked what they were laughing at.

"Why, at your stopping so near the house for the usual stormy, cab-fare settlement. Wise visitors always settle out on the Pyramid Road, so they may regain their composure before alighting. We threw up the windows and heard every word of the picturesque, verbal duel, and we came to the conclusion when the flag fell that the oriental had had his hands full throughout the entire entertainment."

I left next day by train for Alexandria, and I remember it was thirty-five years ago that I started from that city for Port Said, whence I took a steamer for India, passing through the Suez Canal, then not long opened. Time flies, but the canal is still there, at the old stand, doing a steady business with all the nations of the earth that go down to the sea in great ships as daily customers. F. J. Haskin has written an interesting and graphic description of this great work, recently published in the New York Globe, in which he says:

"On the great breakwater at Port Said stands the bronze statue of Ferdinand de Lesseps, his right hand extended in a gesture of invitation to the mariners of all nations to take their ships through the great canal which was the fruit of his genius and diplomacy. Not one word is there to indicate that his fortune and good name lie buried in the failure of another canal, half way round the world.

"The romance of the Suez Canal is suggested by everything the visitor sees at Port Said, the 'turnstile of the nations.' But the tragedy of the canal, the terrible cost of life, the shameful waste of money, the enslavement of the Egyptians in governmental and financial bondage, the wreck of French hopes and aspirations--not one hint of all that tragedy is discernible. Ferdinand de Lesseps, Ismail Pasha and the Egyptian people gave civilization and commerce one of its greatest gifts in the Suez Canal, but the cost to them was all they had--and they were never repaid.