Show LETTER FROM EGYPT there is one arabian word that a tourist very soon becomes familiar with traveling in this part of the world and that is the word he cannot help himself he must learn it provided he be not both blind and deaf it is constantly sounded in his ears in every pitch of voice from the deep bass of the old beggar to the piping diding tones of the little barefooted baly baby this interesting word is said to be of persian origin and meant in its innocent infancy only a new years yearns gift then it was employed to denote any gift and now it is the of arabian arabian beggars as well as auk turkish from the highest to the lowest this means the little copper you throw to the gouty beggar the five pence piece by which you may pass the custom eastom house without trouble or in astill a still larger scale the millions by which the political intrigues in stamboul are kept moving so often has the word been used that it is just about worn out of the original I 1 bach ja cha chawaga wage a gift sirl sir nothing more remains hardly than there is a second word which a tourist will find it very convenient to know and which the first 0 one n e almost forces him to learn th that a t is the little word ian seki this pronounced with a certain emphasis would be equivalent to the euphonious american term skip you little varmint V I 1 it is a wonderful word that same enseki at its pronunciation nuncia tion the right way I 1 have seen hosts ot small barefooted dark skinned beggars run to all sides as if they had bad been touched by some magical power for my own part however I 1 did not care particularly to learn that word enseki nw or rather to use it much I 1 did not want those little fellows or large ones either to skip I 1 had not traveled all these thousands of miles crossing waters and continents merely to tell the people out here to skip J on the contrary I 1 had come to got get the friendship of the people if possible and make them come not go it was therefore a great pleasure to me when I 1 had gathered some dozens of them and could draw them into a conversation I 1 actual actually lv loved to see these there brown sons of ishmael and I 1 did not feel any desire to tell them to go away the consequence was that I 1 was waa hardly ever alone when I 1 went out the bo boys s particularly surrounded denever me whenever I 1 went out in the streets of port said one tiny fellow I 1 remember once came up to me and said sir you be very good man me no father no mother no friends me work for you of course I 1 had to tell him that I 1 had no work for him or for anybody and it seemed as for the moment a whole world of hope had been blown to pieces for him so sad did he look what amused my mv little dark friends mostly was when rhen I 1 would listen to the lessons they would give me in arabic and although there was not much method in their lea sons yet from them I 1 got some idea of the pronunciation of the most difficult letters in the alphabet and a few words and I 1 thought I 1 was well paid for the few cents of bah given to these improvised professors but I 1 must not forget to mention that whenever a policeman saw us he would invariably break the school up the blockhead could not comprehend that 1 liked my dirty teachers he thought they bothered me and for his almighty the teachers ran and the policeman stood smiling in expectation of a himself a thing he never got of me however everything here reminds you that you we are in the orient even the coffee cups and the coffee here in iid use if ye ness nees is one form of beauty the coffee cups here are very beautiful I 1 wish some ot of my scandinavian friends at home could see them they would think them ebil children drens toys only A common coffee cup here is about two inches in diameter at the top and not quite as high as that a mere little thimble but the contents of those cups are generally generall it worth a large cupful at home black BIRO as egyptian darkness and hot and sweet two lumps of sugar that nearly fill 1111 the cup and that black liquid poured 0 on n it that is what they call coffee 1 the german gentleman must have thought of oriental coffee when he said coffee must be black as night sweet as love and hot as hell for that answers the description of oriental coffee exactly before leaving the hotel I 1 noticed an autograph framed aud and walled which had more than common interest to of which I 1 will give you a fao simile I 1 feel confident that a common carver of cow brands for the illustration of notices can reproduce it easily enough it was the autograph of his ho holiness ess the pope and patriarch of alexandria the head of the greek catholic orthodox is there anything else church here is the autograph our correspondent here introduces a string of flourishes which are too intricate to imitate in type and are to us indecipherable ed it was accompanied by the fa following win explanation signature de ea ete de le ie orthodox qui qia vente ad hotel ie 2 nov 1888 1 I believe some of our cowboys in utah could beat his holiness in penmanship prior to departing from port said I 1 witnessed the me devotional exercises of a praying old arab it was on the p pier er in the harbor the sun shone brightly and poured down a flood of light and heat from a cloudless sky the noise from the hundreds of coal carriers working on board the vessels the playing children the shrieking toothache like sounds from the grind organs all were blending together i n one confusion but the old man who evidently was tired wanted to rest a little so he betook retook himself toa to a place behind a boat that had been hauled up to dry and here he selected a place for a quiet nap before lying down however he said his prayers he first took off that square piece of cloth serving as an overcoat and spread it on the ground grou nd next he very slowly pulled out his pocket handkerchief and spread that on one corner of the overcoat after that he knelt down and pulled out a comb and a bit of a looking glass preparatory to combing his beard very carefully as if going to visit this his best girl this performance over he was ready for his prayer myer n with hands sometimes po folded aided sometimes lifted towards the sky and with his eyes always fixed on the pocket handkerchief he recited his prayers wha whatever bever they were with an earties earnestness and fervency edifying to behold the ceremony lasted some twenty minutes after which the pocket hand kerchief was folded up and the old man rolled himself under his cloak and went to sleep on the hard ground ground to a superficial spectator me e whole cere ceremony mouX must have ap pearel ridiculous I 1 I 1 cannot say bay that there was anything ridiculous in it to me I 1 admired the man am who would not take a midday nap in the open street without first having communicated with god in prayer and his bis prayer was evidently not a prayer to an abstract being beyond the blue sky but to some being close at hand I 1 have no doubt that to his the heavenly being whom he be invoked was present standing perhaps on the pocket handkerchief the best carpet t he could procure for the mainente moi moment and thus this old man had a mental conversation so to speak face to face with his deity it seems to me even christians Christia nw could learn something from this ignorant arab but the I 1 christians are a proud set although it is expressly presely ex stated that god is against those that wee are proud I 1 had this illustrated to F me in the expression used by a christian lady a few days ago A little party of tourists went to see the mosque at port said and we were as all are requested to take off our shoes the lady referred to highly indignant and offended offend td exclaimed should I 1 take my shoes off to enter that den I 1 believe the lady was a methodist of the purest blood I 1 asked her if she thought that appellation proper when applied toa mohammedan sanctuary sanctuary she again exclaimed those he athens they are nothing but heathens athens he heathens heathers He athens why I 1 asked because they want us to pull off our shoes then I 1 replied lied god must have been a heathen rl en too because he required moses at 11 a certain time to pull his shoes off well I 1 do not know but that he was sniffed the lady to my great astonishment pardon me I 1 said do I 1 understand you to admit that perhaps god was a heathen god no moses she was evidently so excited that she did not know what she said and finally excused her confusion by asserting that god was not in that mohammedan mosque then 11 1 I r rejoined e j coined the edans must be a mighty race if they are able to shut your god out of their houses a god ot of whom you abw always s say that this he is omnipresent this proud christian went away I 1 hope with a wholesome lesson A philosopher right in port said would have a wonderfully rich field wherein to gather observations for generalizations and framing theories on various subjects connected with the progress of the human race on the road to civilization it is a place where the eastern and western civilizations have met and where each struggle for equality if not for supremacy an observer will soon find that the two after a very few years struggle have already left their marks on each ach other the refinement of the occident has impressed itself upon the more crude civilization of the orient and the crudeness of the the orient is already visibly blended with the more refined civilization of the oc aident in this respect th issue of the struggle is widely different from that of the struggle between the races in america on this latter continent the war has been one of extermination entirely not so here at the threshold of the orient here the races are more equally am strong and it would be no wonder if a kind ind of compromise were the final finai result cert certain in it is that europeans who live here if they were not toughs when they came soon learn to be rough and tough from their arabian brethren while on the other hand band the arabs to a certain extent imitate the newcomers under these circumstances the question arises what will the issue be A retrograde movement of the europeans or progress on the part of the arabians europeans lack the one great factor of true tide progress a living christianity for you ou cannot call those dead rites olan of an ignorant catholic cler clergy or the little better rites of the hurch church of england a living christianity on the contrary cont raYj these if they have any influence at all will produce death instead of life stagnant water produces nothing but putrefaction the following in aident is very illustrative of this it I 1 was some sort of a holiday a corn me of the baptism of christ by john I 1 believe on behalf of the catholic mission here a fellow carrying a crucifix on a plate went round gathering shekels he visited all the stores getting a little here and a little there I 1 noticed in one store a christian merchant threw a large coin on the plate and afterwards dowed bowed very humbly and kissed the crucifix on the plate on seeing him you would think him bim to be a saint of the very purest water into the store of that fe fellow allow came a few minutes afterwards an arab buying something and having some change coming to him AW and that same pious saint who so devotedly had kissed the cross tried to cheat the poor native out of some ten francs by offering him bad coins in exchange fortunately the arab was no tool fool and the pious 1 hypocrite must produce good money but thus is religion here in dealing with the people one must particularly take care not to be cheated by christians surely a religion with such broad allowances can do nothing but harm to the cause of progress an interesting conversation which I 1 recently had with a well educated gentleman a greek by birth I 1 will refer to before closing this letter I 1 obtained his friendship by reading a few verses of my greek new testament to him the modern greek language and that of the ancient greek are quite widely different but it happened that this gentl gentleman emall was well read and understood the beautiful I 1 ea u cifu I 1 glossa of hi his s boref forefathers ath e re the new testament being the medium of our acquaintance out our colv conversation ers atlon at first turned upon religious 11 subjects I 1 was informed that the greek orthodox church was the only true church on earth that all others were apostates and that the destiny of the greek church ws by and by to gain the su supreme spiritual rule over the whole earth I 1 was further informed that the greek church had preserved the forms of the sacraments as they were instituted by ouri our lord I 1 asked for a nearer explanation of this and he said that the greek church distribute both bread and ad wine in the lords supper while the romans give g I 1 ve the people the bread only the the greeks also baptize the children by immersion I 1 further inquired why they binl mersed merged heeln seeing that all the other churches ditl with a few axce eions OP sprinkle wh why y my dear sir fr he said mad the word baptism never meant anything else than immerse and what is not immersion is not baptism here then I 1 had a testimony from a man whose native tongue is 18 nearly identical with the language languay of the new testament and he de the meaning of the word i baptize was nothing but immerse I 1 would like to know what wha an bertna lers could reply to the asser assertion ilog 0 01 J i tfx greek from this subject I 1 ivella ent over to america and told my mend that there was a church which like the greeks used only aion the name of the imrch church yes they were generally kirohn aa 1 1 and a glorious opportunity was given to talk af A 4 subject dear to my heart and of 01 inestimable importance to all afkind kind we separated rated with a earty hand band previously exchanged cards and addresses yours ro roaming amini J M 8 PORT SAID jan 1889 |