Thus circumstanced, they landed at Alexandria from our ship. One of our passengers, Mr. Moses S. Beach, of the New York Sun, inquired of the consul-general what it would cost to send these people to their home in Maine by the way of Liverpool, and he said fifteen hundred dollars in gold would do it. Mr. Beach gave his check for the money and so the troubles of the Jaffa colonists were at an end.13
Alexandria was too much like a European city to be novel, and we soon tired of it. We took the cars and came up here to ancient Cairo, which is an Oriental city and of the completest pattern. There is little about it to disabuse one’s mind of the error if he should take it into his head that he was in the heart of Arabia. Stately camels and dromedaries, swarthy Egyptians, and likewise Turks and black Ethiopians, turbaned, sashed, and blazing in a rich variety of Oriental costumes of all shades of flashy colors, are what one sees on every hand crowding the narrow streets and the honeycombed bazaars. We are stopping at Shepherd’s Hotel, which is the worst on earth except the one I stopped at once in a small town in the United States. It is pleasant to read this sketch in my notebook, now, and know that I can stand Shepherd’s Hotel, sure, because I have been in one just like it in America and survived:
I stopped at the Benton House. It used to be a good hotel, but that proves nothing—I used to be a good boy, for that matter. Both of us have lost character of late years. The Benton is not a good hotel. The Benton lacks a very great deal of being a good hotel. Perdition is full of better hotels than the Benton.
It was late at night when I got there, and I told the clerk I would like plenty of lights, because I wanted to read an hour or two. When I reached No. 15 with the porter (we came along a dim hall that was clad in ancient carpeting, faded, worn out in many places, and patched with old scraps of oil cloth—a hall that sank under one’s feet, and creaked dismally to every footstep), he struck a light—two inches of sallow, sorrowful, consumptive tallow candle, that burned blue, and sputtered, and got discouraged and went out. The porter lit it again, and I asked if that was all the light the clerk sent. He said, “Oh no, I’ve got another one here,” and he produced another couple of inches of tallow candle. I said, “Light them both—I’ll have to have one to see the other by.” He did it, but the result was drearier than darkness itself. He was a cheery, accommodating rascal. He said he would go “somewheres” and steal a lamp. I abetted and encouraged him in his criminal design. I heard the landlord get after him in the hall ten minutes afterward.
“Where are you going with that lamp?”
“Fifteen wants it, sir.”
“Fifteen! why he’s got a double lot of candles—does the man want to illuminate the house?—does he want to get up a torchlight procession?—what is he up to, anyhow?”
“He don’t like them candles—says he wants a lamp.”
“Why what in the nation does—why I never heard of such a thing? What on earth can he want with that lamp?”
“Well, he only wants to read—that’s what he says.”
“Wants to read, does he?—ain’t satisfied with a thousand candles, but has to have a lamp!—I do wonder what the devil that fellow wants that lamp for? Take him another candle, and then if—”
“But he wants the lamp—says he’ll burn the d⸺d old house down if he don’t get a lamp!” (a remark which I never made.)
“I’d like to see him at it once. Well, you take it along—but I swear it beats my time, though—and see if you can’t find out what in the very nation he wants with that lamp.”
And he went off growling to himself and still wondering and wondering over the unaccountable conduct of No. 15. The lamp was a good one, but it revealed some disagreeable things—a bed in the suburbs of a desert of room—a bed that had hills and valleys in it, and you’d have to accommodate your body to the impression left in it by the man that slept there last, before you could lie comfortably; a carpet that had seen better days; a melancholy washstand in a remote corner, and a dejected pitcher on it sorrowing over a broken nose; a looking-glass split across the centre, which chopped your head off at the chin and made you look like some dreadful unfinished monster or other; the paper peeling in shreds from the walls.
I sighed and said: “This is charming; and now don’t you think you could get me something to read?”
The porter said, “Oh, certainly; the old man’s got dead loads of books;” and he was gone before I could tell him what sort of literature I would rather have. And yet his countenance expressed the utmost confidence in his ability to execute the commission with credit to himself. The old man made a descent on him.
“What are you going to do with that pile of books?”
“Fifteen wants ’em, sir.”
“Fifteen, is it? He’ll want a warming-pan, next—he’ll want a nurse! Take him everything there is in the house—take him the barkeeper—take him the baggage-wagon—take him a chambermaid! Confound me, I never saw anything like it. What did he say he wants with those books?”
“Wants to read ’em, like enough; it ain’t likely he wants to eat ’em, I don’t reckon.”
“Wants to read ’em—wants
