lly comes in for its share of
this annoying attention. From ship to hotel, and from hotel to
railway-station, the traveller has to run the gauntlet of people deeply
versed in the subtle arts and wiles of backsheesh diplomacy. At any time,
as you stroll down the street, some native will suddenly bob up like a
sable ghost beside you, point out something you don't want to see, and
brazenly demand backsheesh for showing it. Cook's tourists' office is but
a few hundred yards from my hotel. I have passed it before, and know
exactly where it is, but one of these dusky shadows glides silently
behind me, until the office is nearly reached, when he slips ahead,
points it out, and with consummate assurance demands backsheesh for
guiding me to it. The worst of it is there is no such thing as getting
rid of these pests; they are the most persevering and unscrupulous
blackmailers in their own small way that could be imagined. People whom
you could swear you never set eyes on before will boldly declare they
have acted as guide or something, and dog your footsteps all over the
city; most of them are as "umble" as Uriah Heep himself in their annoying
importunities, but some will not even hesitate to create a scene to gain
their object, and, as the easiest way to get rid of them, the harassed
traveller generally gives them a coin.

In leaving by the train, after one has backsheeshed the hungry swarm of
hotel servitors, backsheeshed the porter who has doggedly persisted in
coming with you to the station, regardless of repeatedly telling him he
wasn't wanted, backsheeshed the baggage man, and bolted almost like a
hunted thing into the railway-carriage from a small host of people who
want backsheesh--one because he happened to detect your wandering
gaze in search of the station clock and eagerly pointed out its
whereabouts, another because he has told you, without being asked, that
the train starts in ten minutes, another because he pointed out your
carriage, which for a brief transitory instant you failed to recognize,
and others for equally trivial things, for which they all seem keenly on
the alert--you shut yourself in with a feeling of relief that must be
something akin to escaping from a gang of brigands. King Backsheesh
evidently rules supreme in Egypt yet.

My route to India takes me along the Egyptian Railway to Suez, thence by
steamer down the Red Sea to Aden and Karachi. A passenger train on this
railway consists of carriages di