Dragoman

“The word dragoman, derived from turgoman, and meaning simply an interpreter, has gotten to signify a sort of courier, valet, servant, adviser, and traveling companion, all combined, on whom the Oriental traveler must expect to be dependent for his very subsistence from day to day, from and after the moment he becomes attached to him.
A friend of mine, speaking of the servants, was accustomed to call them ‘the young ladies who boarded with his mother’. The dragoman may be defined as the gentleman who travels with you. He becomes a part of yourself, goes where you go, sleeps where you sleep, you talk through him, buy through him (and pay him and through him at the same time), and, in point of fact, you become his servant. All this, if you choose. But, if you choose otherwise, you may make him what he should be, a very good servant, and nothing more. He who can not manage his own servants should stay at home and not travel. The man whose servant can cheat him, should not keep servants, or should submit to his own stupidity.
I may as well pause here, to advise the Egyptian traveler under no circumstances to take a dragoman until he reaches Cairo. He will find English, French, and Italian, spoken everywhere in Alexandria, and on the railway to Cairo, so that he will need no assistance until he begins to make his arrangements to go up the Nile; which he should not make in Alexandria.”