January, 1921 
FOREST AND STREAM 
15 
vests and jackets, though all are bare 
of legs and feet. The outrunners, 
with long, white wands, clear the way 
for the carriages, which are driven at 
top speed. 
Every one, male and female, native 
or foreign, unless one affords a carriage 
and horses and outrunners, rides a 
donkey as a means of transportation or 
pleasure. The veiled native woman 
squats on her haunches on the quarter 
deck of a donkey; the English girl, in 
sailor hat, sits sidewise; the English 
army officer and other foreign devils 
sit astraddle with their feet nearly 
dragging the ground; and behind and 
overshadowing each equestrian runs the 
tall, irrepressible donkey boy, with his 
long stick, which he uses to accelerate 
the pace of the diminutive donkey, no 
larger than a Shetland pony. While 
this seems absurd, amusing and ridicu- 
lous to the newcomer, he soon accepts 
the situation, mounts his donkey, and 
bows to the inevitable. The donkeys 
are parked in front of the hotels and 
do not have to wait very long for a 
passenger. 
And then there are pedlars of various 
articles of merchandise, snake charm- 
ers, mountebanks, sword swallowers 
and jugglers at the street corners and 
in front of the hotels and parks, which 
add to the gayety of the nations con- 
cerned. There are numerous bazaars, 
enclosing the small stalls of the mer- 
chants, who sit smoking and dozing, 
but ever alert and awake to a prospect- 
ive customer. The wares displayed are 
usually artistic and attractive. 
A T the hotel we met Dr. Peters, a 
German traveler and explorer, 
whose coal-black Soudanese valet 
was the cynosure of every native eye 
and the envy of every Nubian and Sou- 
danese in his gold-laced, sky-blue uni- 
form and gold neck chain two yards 
long. We also became acquainted with 
Dr. Schliemann the Greek archaeologist 
and excavator of Troy and Mycenae, 
who had been up the Nile examining 
the ruined temples and tombs. 
Dr. Schliemann had returned on the 
last dahabieh of the season, conse- 
quently we could not ascend the Nile 
as we had contemplated. The odd- 
looking craft called dahabeah is pecu- 
liar to the Nile, and is well adapted for 
its navigation, being long and narrow 
and very shallow, and has, usually, two 
masts, one in the extreme bow and one 
at the extreme stern, rigged with lateen 
sails somewhat like the felucca. 
As it happened we had a chance to 
sail a short distance in one, as a couple 
of English anglers had made arrange- 
ments to go fishing in one, and invited 
us to go along. Longworth and I car- 
ried our own lines, snells, flies and 
hooks with us for just such an oppor- 
tunity; bamboo canes were used as rods. 
As the Nile is always turbid or 
muddy, artificial flies were out of the 
question and we compromised on 
chicken liver for bait. We had very 
fair luck, inasmuch as we each took 
several fish of a foot or two in length. 
Then the question arose as to their 
identity, which no one seemed to know. 
I explained that they belonged to the. 
minnow family, of which there are 
probably a thousand members in the 
world, and that I was not familiar with 
the particular genus to which our fish 
belonged. 
“But, my dear man,” exclaimed one 
of our English friends, “a minnow, as I 
take it, is quite small, but a few inches 
long.” 
“True,” I rejoined, “but your English 
roach, dace and carp belong to the 
minnow family, and grow to a good 
size; and we have in Oregon and Cali- 
fornia a minnow^ the squaw fish, that 
attains a length of several feet.” 
“My word”, he exclaimed, “but I 
suppose you are jolly well right, for 
everything in America is just ripping!” 
“It has just occurred to me,” I con- 
tinued, “that two thousand years ago 
when Mark Antony, the Roman tri- 
umvir, was a guest of Cleopatra, the 
Queen of Egypt, she used to take him 
out fishing in her sumptuous barge; 
and as Antony was not much of an 
angler, Cleopatra arranged, secretly, 
with her servants, to dive beneath the 
water and affix fishes to his hook. In 
this way, vicariously and by proxy, 
Mark acquired a great reputation as a 
successful angler in Nilotic sporting 
circles. And the fish that were instru- 
mental in establishing his reputation, I 
am now convinced, were the fish now 
under consideration!” 
Hear, hear, hear!” chorused our 
friends. 
“And now,” said Longworth, “there 
remains but one thing to do — to give 
these fish a name; so, in consideration 
of their habits and habitat, I propose 
to call them ‘Nihilists’, and let it go at 
that!” 
L EAVING Cairo, Long-worth and I 
returned to Alexandria, accom- 
panied by Dr. Schliemann, whom 
we found to be a very interesting ac- 
quaintance. We took passage at once 
on an Egyptian steamer for Athens, the 
home of Dr. Schliemann. When we 
were ushered into dinner we discovered 
at the head of the table an imposing 
colored individual with an immense 
shock of white wool,' with a white wo- 
man at his left. We imagined him to 
be some distinguished African sheik, 
but he proved to be our distinguished 
fellow-countryman Mr. Fred Douglass, 
with his white wife. 
(I then remembered that on the oc- 
casion of his marriage some years be- 
fore, a meeting was held in Washing- 
ton City, by the most intelligent colored 
people, to discuss the matter. On the 
next day I met an old colored friend 
and inquired of him as to the result 
of the meeting. All he said was: “Oh, 
Doctor, Mr. Douglass done disgrace 
hisself.”) 
Mr. Douglass was an interesting 
talker, and was quite enthusiastic over 
the prospect of visiting Greece. Ad- 
dressing Dr. Schliemann, the great au- 
thority on Grecian antiquities, of 
whose identity he was ignorant, he 
said that he had purchased a little 
handbook entitled “Murray’s Guide to 
Greece,” which, he said, contained much 
valuable information concerning that 
country, and advised him to procure a 
copy. Dr. Schliemann, who sat next 
to him, thanked him for his advice, 
with a mischievous wink at us, which 
was really the only thing to do. 
Dr. Schliemann and his handsome 
and intelligent wife held weekly recep- 
tions for the members of the archaeo- 
logical schools of the various countries, 
among others that of the United States. 
We attended one of these functions a 
few days after our arrival, when the 
Doctor was to discourse on his recent 
trip up the Nile. Somewhat to our sur- 
prise we beheld Mr. Douglass, the 
Moses of his race and perennial office- 
holder, with his wife, conversing with 
some American and English students. 
Longworth said to me: “I would give 
my hat had I been present when Doug- 
lass was first introduced to the excava- 
tor of Troy and Mycenao!” 
Athens is beautifully situated on the 
(continued on page 40) 
The Citadel in Cairo, Egypt, in the year 1887 
