The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-06-19
.EGYPT'S EASY
GOING MANNER
Lack of Hustle Tries Patience
of Westerners
THEY GET IN NO HURRY
y
To Close Business Deal Under Way.
Similarly No Hurry to Pay Bill
That Is Owing-MOnlem's
s Intense Piety
THEY GET IN NO HURRY

From the .Eondon Mail
To do business with Egyptian carries
one back to the Arabian Nights. 1t Is to
the western mind one long waste Of time.
Suppose a European has motor cars to
sell. He hears a wealthy boy or pasha
is inclined to buy one. He calls upon
him, is welcomed, is offered coffee and
cigarettes; talk upon all kinds Of sub
jects-except motor cars--is politely in
vited to come again. He may call half
dozen times before he comes near strik-i
ing a. bargain, and after that he has to
secure his money, which very likely takes
half q dozen more calls. This is the reg
ular eastern manner. 1t is as futile to
try to hurry matters on as 1t is to at
tempt to deal at fixed prices. Bargain
ing is part Of the pleasure of life.
To be annoyed with the eastern man
ner is unreasonable. though human. Eu-
ropeans who live in Egypt have often raw
edges to their tenlpers, especially in sum-
mer time. Yet the only sensible thing
to do Is to grin and bear it. The east is
still as it has always been. Further, one
has to make allowances in dealing with
the Egyptian functionary. He Is gem
orally pleasant and obliging, but you
must let him take his time, and never
ask him to step outside the strict letter
of his position. Sometimes his slowness
LIS maddening. On days when mails are
In, Cooks office in Cairo is filled with
long queue of people eager for letters.
Watch the Egyptian clerk In charge of
the postoffice go through the bundles
with conscientious determination to make
no mistakes, examining each address at
length. Then glance at the line of faces
in the queue. You realize that east is
east and west Is west, and never the
twain shall meet with peculiar force.
Egyptian Qualities
The Egyptian has many good qualities,
but neither managing ability, in the west
ern sense, nor the power of altering his
usual methods to meet emergencies,
whether great or small, is among them.
AS a subordinate he Is often a model of
devotion to duty. But in authority his
tendency is to fall into tyranny and cor
ruption; that is the universal testimony
of those who know him best. AS he
has been In the past, so he Is STILL
Sprinkling little education over him and
putting him into uniform do not change
his soul. In the museum the other day
I was assisted by a smart, intelligent
English-speaking attendant, who, having
attended to me, sat down, took his boot
off and proceeded to cut his corns! One
must get used to differences in customs
and in points of view and refuse to ac-
cept the narrow, off-hand opinion that a
thing is bad because We are not accus-
toned to 1t.
Equally shallow are those who deny
that the religion of the Egyptians-I mean
Islam, for nine-tenths of them profess
that faith-has any effect upon their lives.
Often that attitude is taken up by Chris
tians as the only refuge from shame at
the far greater pety of the Moslem. At
first the visitor from Europe or America
watches with amazement the merchant
before his shop, the peasant In the fields,
the sailor in his vessel, standing and
kneeing and bowling in prayer with alb
sorbedi devotion and no thought Of being
laughed at. Soon. however, this becomes
so common sight that it is noticed no
longer Where in a Christian country
could one see the like? In Carlo there is
a fine block of flats built by the khedive
and beside it is a little Enclosure sur
rounding a ruinous old mud tomb. This
ID the tomb of holy man. Public opin-
ION was too strong for the khedive even
to dare. to remove it. IT was scheduled
for demolition, but it had to stay.
Moslem Piety
Moslem piety does not have the same
effects. perhaps, as Christian piety, but
to pretend that it has none Is ludicrous in
view of the charity of Mohammedans,
their acceptance of the idea of brother
hood, their simplicity of life. In a big
shop in Cairo was told. as matter of
course, that the proprietors gave 10 per
cent of the profits to the poor. No one
ever starves in Egypt. There is always
helping hand,
Complaints are often made, too, of the
complaints are often made, too, of the
Egyptian laborer. His intelligence is con-
trasted with that of Europeans. But
there rs another side of this also.
On some irrigation works one day the en-
gineer told me that iron trolley had
run of its rails and plunged into pond
He was debating how to recover it when
the men on the job proposed diving to
Itry to locate 1t. Before long one of them
Had found 1t and had made fast cable
to 1t in IL feet of water. So secure was
his knot that the trolley could be hauled
out without further ado.
In his good qualities and In his bad
qualities the Egyptian. with his circum-
stances easier, his personal liberty less
precarious, his prosperity more secure, Is
very much what he has always been. Be-
meath the surface the progress of recent
years under British tutelage has made
next to no difference 1t has altered very
little his mental processes, his religious
Oft nd IotI