49 8 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1880- 



tion. I don t believe that any Arab has the slightest 

 personal objection to a Christian, at least if he can get a 

 baksheesh from him ; but something is due to public 

 opinion, which has decreed that to serve a Christian is 

 not respectable. Moreover, it is the inalienable privilege 

 of Moslem children to call names at an unbeliever, and 

 set the dogs to bark at him, and it was just as well to be 

 exempt from the duty of resenting such conduct. In 

 short, my men felt much easier in travelling with an 

 Effendi in semada (head shawl), mishlakh, and caftan, 

 than they would have done with a Khawdja in coat and 

 trousers. 



The second member of the party was Ismail, the con 

 fidential servant of my friend Mr. Wylde. Born in the 

 Hejaz of Egyptian parents, Ismail began life as a sad 

 truant, who was always running away from school from 

 Mecca to Jeddah, and from Jeddah to Mecca. His roving 

 habits clung to him as he grew up. He wandered to 

 Egypt, and thence in various employments to India, 

 the Straits, and even to China, picking up as he went a 

 useful knowledge of a great many Asian and African 

 languages. Returning to Egypt, he was long in French 

 service, and visited Paris. Since he settled in Jeddah he 

 has accompanied Mr. Wylde in several long and difficult 

 journeys through Abyssinia and the Soudan, and has 

 also visited London. With a very observant habit and 

 a tenacious memory, Ismail is a good type of the Arabic 

 traveller, in whom the constitutional Eastern love of ease 

 is crossed by a restless curiosity. With better education 

 and more favourable circumstances, he might have been 

 a modern Ibn Batuta, of whose story Ismail s traveller s 

 tales have often reminded me. The Arabian traveller is 

 quite different from ourselves. The labour of moving 

 from place to place is a mere nuisance to him, he has no 

 enjoyment in effort, and grumbles at hunger or fatigue 

 with all his might. You will never persuade the Oriental 

 that, when you get off your camel, you can have any other 



