The Bad Boy and His Dad Arrive in Cairo--At the Hotel They
Meet Some Egyptian Princesses--Dan Rides a Camel to the
Pyramids and Meets with Difficulties.
Cairo, Egypt.--My Dear Old Irish Vegetable: Gee, but you ought to see
dad and I right now at a hotel, waiting for a chance at a room, when
a bride and groom get ready to vacate it, and go somewhere else. This
hotel is full of married people who look scared whenever there is a
new arrival, and I came pretty near creating a panic by going into the
parlor of the hotel, where a dozen couples were sitting around making
goo-goo eyes at each other, and getting behind a screen and, in a
disguised voice, shouting, “I know all! Prepare to defend yourself!”
The women turned pale and some said, “At last! At last!” while others
got faint in the head, and some fell on the bosoms of their husbands and
said: “Don't shoot!” You see, most of these wives had husbands somewhere
else that might be looking for them. I have warned dad not to be seen
conversing with a woman, or he may be shot by a husband who is on her
trail, or by the husband she has with her.
Well, sir, of all the trips we have had anywhere, the trip from
Constantinople here was the limit. For two or three days we were on
dinky steamboats with Arabs, Turks, negroes and all nationalities
camping on deck, full of fleas, and with cholera germs on them big
enough to pick like blueberries, and all of the passengers were dirty
and eat things that would make a dog in America go mad. The dog biscuit
that are fed to American dogs would pass as a delicate confection on
the menu of any steamboat we struck, and I had rather lie down in a barn
yard with a wet dog for a pillow and a cast-off blanket from a smallpox
hospital for a bed, than to occupy the bridal chamber of any steamboat
we struck.
And then the ride across the desert by rail to reach Cairo was the worst
in the world. Passengers in rags, going to Mecca, or some other place of
worship, eating cheese a thousand years old made from old goat's milk,
and dug from the Pyramids too late to save it, was what surrounded us,
and the sand storm blew through the cars laden with germs of the plague,
and stuck to us so tight you couldn't get it off with sandpaper, and
when we got here all we have had to do is to bathe the dirt off in
layers.
[Illustration: It takes nine baths to get down to American epidermis
304]
It takes nine baths to get down to American epidermis, and the last bath
has a jackplane to go with it, and a thing they scale fish with. But we
are all right now, with rooms in the hotel, and rested, and when we go
home we are going to be salted down and given chloroform and shipped
as mummies. Dad insists that he will never cross a desert or an ocean
again, and I don't know what is to become of us. Anyway, we are going to
enjoy ourselves until we are killed off.
The first two days we just looked about Cairo, and saw the congress of
nations, for there is nothing just like this town anywhere. There are
people from all quarters of the globe, the most outlandish and the most
up-to-date. This place is an asylum for fakirs and robbers, a place
where defaulters, bribers, murderers, swindlers and elopers are safe,
as there seems to be no extradition treaty that cannot be overcome by
paying money to the officials. I found that out the first day, and told
dad we should have no standing in the society of Egypt unless the people
thought he had committed some gigantic crime and fled his country.
Dad wanted to know how it would strike me if it was noised about the
hotel that he had robbed a national bank, but I, told him there would
be nothing uncommon or noticeable about robbing a bank, as half the
tourists were bank defaulters, so he would have to be accused of
something startling, so we decided that dad should be charged with
being the principal thing in the Standard Oil Company, and that he had
underground pipe lines running under several states, gathering oil away
from the people who owned it, and that at the present time he was worth
a billion dollars, and his income was $9,000,000 every little while,
and, by ginger, you ought to see the people bow down to him. Say, common
bank robbers and defaulters just fell over themselves to get acquainted
with dad, and to carry out the joke, I put some kerosene oil on dad's
handkerchief, and that clinched it, for everybody loves the smell of a
perfume that represents a billion dollars.
All the women wanted to dance with dad in the hotel dance, and because
they thought I must be heir to all the oil billions, they wanted to hold
me on their laps, and stroke my hair, as though I was it. I guess we
are going to have everything our own way here, and if dad does not
get eloped with by some Egyptian princess, I shall be mistaken. The
Egyptians are pretty near being negroes, and wear bangles in their ears,
and earrings on their arms. You take it in the dark, and let a princess
put her arms around you, and sort of squeeze you, and you can't tell
but what she is white, only there is an odor about them like “Araby the
blessed,” but in the light they are only negroes, a little bleached,
with red paint on their cheeks. If I was going to marry an Egyptian
woman, I would take her to Norway, or up towards the north pole, where
it is night all day, and you wouldn't realize that you were married to
a colored woman. To be around among these Egyptians is a good deal like
having a pass behind the scenes at the play of Ben Hur in New York, only
here the dark and dangerous women are the real thing, instead of being
white girls with black paint on.
We have just got back from the pyramids, and dad is being treated for
spinal meningitis, on account of riding a camel. I never tried harder
to get dad to go anywhere on the cars than I did to get him to go to the
pyramids by rail, as a millionaire should, but he said he was going to
break a camel to the saddle, and then buy him and take him home for a
side show. So we went down to the camel garage and hired a camel for
dad, and four camels for the arabs and things he wanted for an escort,
and a jackass for me. There were automobiles and carriages, and
trolleys, and everything that we could have hired, and been comfortable
for the ten-mile ride, but dad was mashed on the camel, and he got it.
Well, sir, it was not one of these world's fair camels that lay down for
you to get on, and then got up on the installment plan, and chuck you
forward and aft, but a proud Egyptian camel that stands up straight and
makes you climb up on a stepladder.
Dad got along up the camel's ribs, when the-stepladder fell, and he
grabbed hold of the hair on the two humps, and the humps were loose and
they lopped over on the side, and it must have hurt the camel's feelings
to have his humps pulled down, so he reached around his head and took a
mouthful out of the seat of dad's pants, and dad yelled to the camel
to let go, and the Arabs amputated the camel from dad's trousers, and
pushed dad up on top with a bamboo pole with a crotch in it, and when
dad got settled between the humps he said, “Let 'er go,” and we started.
Dad could have had a camel with a platform on top, and an awning, but he
insisted on taking his camel raw, and he sat there between those humps,
his trousers worked up towards his knees, showing his red socks and blue
drawers, and his face got pale from sea sickness, and the red, white and
blue colors made me think of a fourth of July at home. We went out of
town like a wild west show, and dad seemed happy, except that every time
an automobile went whizzing along, dad's camel got the jumps and waltzed
sideways out into the sandy desert, and chewed at dad's socks, so part
of the time dad had to draw up his legs and sit on one hump and put his
shoes on the other hump. The Arabs on the other camels would ride up
alongside and steer dad's camel back into the road, by sticking sharp
sticks into the camel, and the animal would yawn and groan and make up
faces at me on my jackass, and finally dad wanted to change works with
me and ride my jackass, but I told him we had left the stepladder back
at Cairo, so dad hung to his mountainous steed, but the dust blew so
you couldn't see, and it was getting monotonous when the queerest thing
happened.
You have heard that camels can fill up with water and go for a week
without asking for any more. Well, I guess the week was up, and it was
time to load the camels with water, for as we came to the Nile every
last camel made a rush for the river, and they went in like a yoke of
oxen on a stampede, and waded in clear up to the humps, and began to
drink, and dad yelled for a life preserver and pulled his feet up on top
and sat there like a frog on a pond lily leaf.
[Illustration: Sat there like a frog on a pond lily leaf 308]
My jackass only stepped his feet in the edge, and dad wanted me to swim
my jackass out to the camel and let him fall off onto the jack, but I
knew dad would sink my jack in a minute, and I wouldn't go in the river.
Well, the camels drank about an hour, with dad sitting there meditating,
and then the dragomen got them out, and we started off for the pyramids,
which were in plain sight like the pictures you have seen, with palm
trees along the Nile, and Arabs camping on the bank, and it looked as
though everything was going to be all right, when suddenly dad's camel
stopped dead still and wouldn't move a foot, and all the rest of the
camels stopped, closed their eyes and went to sleep, and the Arabs went
to sleep, and dad and the jackass and I were apparently the only animals
in Egypt that were awake.
Dad kicked his camel in the ribs, but it wouldn't budge. He asked me if
I could't think up some way to start the procession, and I stopped my
jackass and thought a minute, and told dad I had it. I had bought some
giant fire crackers and roman candles at Cairo, with which I was going
to fire a salute on top of the biggest pyramid, to celebrate for old
America, and I told dad what I had got, and I thought if I got off my
jackass and fired a salute there in the desert it would wake them up.
Dad said, “all right, let 'er go, but do it sort of easy, at first, so
not to overdo it,” and I got my artillery ready. Say, you can't fire off
fireworks easy, you got to touch a match to 'em and dodge and take your
chances. Well, I scratched a match and lit the giant fire cracker, and
put it under the hind legs of dad's camel, and when it got to fizzing
I lit my roman candle, and as the fire cracker exploded like a 16-inch
gun, my roman candle began to spout balls of fire, and I aimed one at
each camel, and the whole push started on a stampede for the pyramids,
the camels groaning, the Arabs praying to Allah, dad yelling to stop
'er, and my jackass led the bunch, and I was left in the desert to pick
up the hats.
[Illustration: Started on a stampede for the pyramids 311]
I guess I will have to tell you' the rest of the tragedy in my next
letter.
Yours with plenty of sand,
Hennery.