Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-02-01

required to kneel to take on cargo, human and
otherwise, are piteous to the heartbreak point.
Now all who have any acquaintance with camels
know that this is more or less of bluff ON the
part of this eyer-mysterious creature-who ID
firmly believed by the Arabs to be naughty in
mein because it alone knows the hundredth
name of Allah. But the camel's squeal ON
taking on passenger at the Pyramids Of Gizeh,
for instance, is part of the atmosphere OF
Egypt If it is too keen strain on the SYM
pathies of the passenger, or of the bystander
who has resisted the opportunities of the guides
and camel drivers and remained aground then
it is just too bad, for nothing can be done
about it.
For the donkeys one has an abiding sym-
pathy They are so tiny, and their loads are
so huge! They are so patient, and their
drivers are so importunatei They are
philosophical, and their drivers are so un-
reasonable! And when one meets a thickly
swathed magnate of Ophir, looking at least to
weigh 200 pounds-though the costume involves
a considerable tare-seated the back Of q
donkey weighing apparently one-third as much
as his rider, the admonition strictly to mind
ones own business is indeed hard to observe.
Assuredly, Egypt is no place for the sympathizer
with the lower creatures.
Passing from the sentimental and sensory
fields, there comes to mind as one who should
not visit Egypt the person who cannot say
mo" finally and decisively to pesterers. Egypt
is the breeding place, verify believe, OF the
human pesterer. Be he beggar, or guide, or
sidewalk salesman, or bootblack he is an artist
supreme in persistence, in insinuation, in logged
determination. He cannot be insulted. He
cannot be discouraged. He has an unerring
eye for the foreigner, the tourist. He needs
no such appurtenant token of travel such as
a camera or a pair of binoculars to spot his
victim. He has aliens of all lands flow through
Cairo for generations, by tens, hundreds OF
fIna1c re Elo &c ck cfnr in Tho nw4 nN
approach.
The pesterer, guide, salesman, bootblack,
beggar must be fairly dealt with at the outset.
With succinct denial, with emphatic rejection.
without the slightest sign of sympathy or in-
terest without the least excuse or apology or
explanation-just swept aside peremptorily.
For he who dallies is lost. The pesterer may
not land his manor woman-today, but he
will lay for him tomorrow, and eventually he
will get his victim. There is no safe middle
ground. Only by hard-boiled refusal, with
sidewSe sweep of the open hand and with the
single word "ennshe," meaning nothing doing,'
can the pesterer be routed. So he who cannot
say mo" finally and distinctly and even rudely
on the first approach should not visit Egypt.
THEN there is the person who believes that
all is old that looks so, and who buys &C
cordingly, without taking advice, without ex-
perience. He surely should not go to Egypt.
For he will return laden with junk that may not
stand up during the homeward voyage. He viii
find his treasures literally turned to dust, fig
ureS supposedly taken from ancient tombs re-
vertng to the recent mud of the Nile, lightly
baked in the sun and crumbled with the least
touch. He viii have a collection Of scarabS
made in Germany" by the thousand gross.
He will have miles of nice blue beads of the
Eighteenth Dynasty" that are fresh from
Czechoslovakia. And other things that are
dear at the absurdy low prices for which they
can be bought with just a bit of bargaining
at which the native salesman is far more expert
than almost any tourist
A subsection of this same category consists
of those who dislike to be rude to others. A
noble rule Of conduct commands one to be