He sang "Upidee" with an accent which
threw me into such ecstasies that it brought the whole boat to hear
him, and we all gave him backsheesh. But his piety was what captivated
us. I heard afterwards that no fewer than ten of us privately resolved
to give him Bibles. He begged us to visit the college; so the next day
eight of us gave up the tombs and went to the American college, which
was floating the Stars and Stripes because it was Washington's
birthday. We spoke to Dr. Alexander, the president, of our friend
Solomon. He told us that he was an absolute fraud, but one of the
cleverest boys in the college. He was not an orphan. His father took a
new wife every year, and his mother also had an assorted collection of
husbands. He had been to school five years instead of one. He had no
end of Bibles. People gave them to him and he sold them. He had been
in jail for stealing, and on the whole his showing was not such as to
encourage us to help him to preach. Such was Solomon, a typical
Egyptian, an equally accurate type of the Arab. They are the cleverest
and most consummate liars in the world.
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