s rather like a page out of
Charles Lever, for the rollicking Irishman was as much in evidence as
the holy devotee. They culminated in a drinking bout with an Albanian
captain, whom he left, so to speak, under the table; and this having got
noised abroad, Burton, with his reputation for sanctity forfeited, found
it expedient to set off at once for Mecca. He sent the boy Nur on to
Suez with his baggage and followed him soon after on a camel through a
"haggard land infested with wild beasts and wilder men." At Suez he
made the acquaintance of some Medina and Mecca folk, who were to be
his fellow-travellers; including "Sa'ad the Demon," a negro who had two
boxes of handsome apparel for his three Medina wives and was resolved
to "travel free;" and Shaykh Hamid, a "lank Arab foul with sweat," who
never said his prayers because of the trouble of taking clean clothes
out of his box. "All these persons," says Burton, "lost no time in
opening the question of a loan. It was a lesson in Oriental metaphysics
to see their condition. They had a twelve days' voyage and a four days'
journey before them; boxes to carry, custom houses to face, and stomachs
to fill; yet the whole party could scarcely, I believe, muster two
dollars of ready money. Their boxes were full of valuables, arms,
clothes, pipes, slippers, sweetmeats, and other 'notions,' but nothing
short of starvation would have induced them to pledge the smallest
article." [114] Foreseeing the advantage of their company, Burton
sagaciously lent each of them a little money at high interest, not for
the sake of profit, but with a view to becoming a Hatim Tai, [115] by a
"never mind" on settling day. This piece of policy made "the Father
of Moustaches," as they called him, a person of importance among
them. During the delay before starting, he employed himself first in
doctoring, and then in flirting with a party of Egyptian women the most
seductive of whom was one Fattumah, [116] a plump lady of thirty "fond
of flattery and possessing, like all her people, a voluble tongue." The
refrain of every conversation was "Marry me, O Fattumah! O daughter!
O female pilgrim." To which the lady would reply coquettishly, "with a
toss of the head and a flirting manipulation of her head veil," "I
am mated, O young man." Sometimes he imitated her Egyptian accent and
deprecated her country women, causing her to get angry and bid him
begone. Then, instead of "marry me, O Fattumah," he would say, "O o