I wonder that the noble men
and women who are giving their lives to teaching in that wonderful
mission college have the courage to go on with it, the material is so
unpromising. Yet Arabic acuteness makes it interesting, after all. A
pretty little water-carrier named Fatima, who wore a blue bead in the
hole bored in her nose, and only one other garment besides, ran beside
me at Denderah, calling me "beautiful princess," and kissing my hand
until she made my glove sticky. None of us were too old or too hideous
in our Nile costumes to be called beautiful and good. My donkey-boy at
Karnak assured me that I was his father and his mother. He touched his
forehead to my hand, then showed me how his dress was "broken," and
begged his new father-and-mother to give him a new one.
They are creatures of a different race. You treat them as you would
treat affectionate dogs. You beat them if they pick your pockets, as
they do every chance they get, and then they offer to show you the boy
who did it. I never got to the point of personally beating mine, but
Imam beat a few of them every day.
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