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flirtations, and matrimonial engagements. But the
Cairene season has perhaps some advantage over the London one so far
as this particular set of "swagger" folk are concerned--it is less
hampered by the proprieties. One can be more "free," you know! You
may take a little walk into "Old" Cairo, and turning a corner you may
catch glimpses of what Mark Twain calls "Oriental simplicity," namely,
picturesquely-composed groups of "dear delightful" Arabs whose
clothing is no more than primitive custom makes strictly necessary.
These kind of "tableaux vivants" or "art studies" give quite a thrill of
novelty to Cairene-English Society,--a touch of savagery,--a soupcon of
peculiarity which is entirely lacking to fashionable London. Then, it
must be remembered that the "children of the desert" have been led by
gentle degrees to understand that for harboring the strange locusts
imported into their land by Cook, and the still stranger specimens of
unclassified insect called Upper Ten, which imports itself, they will
receive "backsheesh."
"Backsheesh" is a certain source of comfort to all nations, and
translates itself with sweetest euphony into all languages, and the
desert-born tribes have justice on their side when they demand as much
of it as they can get, rightfully or wrongfully. They deserve to gain
some sort of advantage out of the odd-looking swarms of Western
invaders who amaze them by their dress and affront them by their
manners. "Backsheesh," therefore, has become the perpetual cry of the
Desert-Born,--it is the only means of offence and defence left to them,
and very naturally they cling to it with fervor and resolution. And who
shall blame them? The tall, majestic, meditative Arab--superb as mere

man, and standing naked- footed on his sandy native soil, with his one
rough garment flung round his loins and his great black eyes fronting,
eagle-like, the sun--merits something considerable for condescending
to act as guide and servant to the Western moneyed civilian who
clothes his lower limbs in straight, funnel-like cloth casings, shaped to
the strict resemblance of an elephant's legs, and finishes the graceful
design by enclosing the rest of his body in a stiff shirt wherein he can
scarcely move, and a square-cut coat which divides him neatly in twain
by a line immediately above the knee, with the effect of lessening his
height by several inches. The Desert-Born surveys him gravely and in
civil compassion, sometimes with a muttered prayer against the
hideousness of him, but on the whole with patience and
equanimity,--influenced by considerations of "backsheesh." And the
English "season" whirls lightly and vaporously, like blown egg-froth,
over the mystic land of the old gods,--the terrible land filled with dark
secrets as yet unexplored,--the land "shadowing with wings," as the
Bible hath it,--the land in which are buried tremendous histories as yet
unguessed,--profound enigmas of the supernatural,--labyrinths of
wonder, terror and mystery,--all of which remain unrevealed to the
giddy-pated, dancing, dining, gabbling throng of the fashionable
travelling lunatics of the day,--the people who "never think because it is
too much trouble," people whose one idea is to journey from hotel to
hotel and compare notes with their acquaintances afterwards as to
which house provided them with the best-cooked food. For it is a
noticeable fact that with most visitors to the "show" places of Europe
and the East, food, bedding and selfish personal comfort are the first
considerations,--the scenery and the associations come last. Formerly
the position was reversed. In the days when there were no railways, and
the immortal Byron wrote his Childe Harold, it was customary to rate
personal inconvenience lightly; the beautiful or historic scene was the
attraction for the traveller, and not the arrangements made for his
special form of digestive apparatus. Byron could sleep on the deck of a
sailing vessel wrapped in his cloak and feel none the worse for it; his
well-braced mind and aspiring spirit soared above all bodily
discomforts; his thoughts were engrossed with the mighty teachings of
time; he was able to lose himself in glorious reveries on the lessons of
the past and the possibilities of the future; the attitude of the inspired

Thinker as well as Poet was his, and a crust of bread and cheese served
him as sufficiently on his journeyings among the then unspoilt valleys
and mountains of Switzerland as the warm, greasy, indigestible fare of
the elaborate table-d'hotes at Lucerne and Interlaken serve us now. But
we, in our "superior" condition, pooh-pooh the Byronic spirit of
indifference to events and scorn of trifles,--we say it is "melodramatic,"
completely forgetting that our attitude towards ourselves and things in
general is one of most pitiable bathos. We cannot write Childe Harold,
but we can grumble at both bed and board in every hotel under the sun;
we can discover teasing midges in the air and questionable insects in