The Contract

Abd-el-Atti was a young, well-built, active Egyptian, with a face much like a North American Indian’s. His complexion was copper-colored, his eyes black and rather unsteady. After the Nile voyage I took him with me to Syria; and, having had him for a servant during nearly eight months of constant travel, I think I know the man perfectly.
His temper was violent, but I had no difficulty with it. Like all dragomans, he was anxious to make money, and could see but one view of a money question. I had no trouble with him on that score either. If I yielded to him in one instance, I made him yield in the next. If the traveler will look out for his temperament, and treat him kindly, as a good servant should be treated, I have no hesitation in recommending him as the most accomplished dragoman in Egypt or the East.
He had lived some years in England and France, spoke the language of those countries, Italian, Turkish, and his own, the Arabic – read and wrote Arabic well, which was a great desideratum for our purposes, and had seen travel and adventure enough to be able to tell and manufacture large stories for our amusement, when there was nothing better to do. I give here our contract with him verbatim.

Contract

We, the undersigned, J. Hammond Trumbull, and W. C. Prime, with Mrs. Trumbull and Mrs. Prime, have this day agreed with Mohammed Abd-el-Atti for a trip up the Nile, on the following conditions:

Mohammed Abd-el-Atti engages to provide a comfortable boat, with awning and jolly boat; to furnish said boat with beds, bedding, tables, china, glass, water filters, and all and every requisite necessary for the convenience and comfort of first-class passengers.
Mohammed Abd-el-Atti agrees to provide all stores, provisions, candles, lights, etc., as shall be necessary for the entire voyage. Also to provide as many courses for breakfast, dinner, etc., as shall be required by the above parties.
Mohammed Abd-el-Atti agrees to provide and pay for one cook, one servant, and one assistant, to wash clothes, etc., during the entire voyage.
Under the above conditions Mohammed Abd-el-Atti agrees to take Messrs’Prime and Trumbull, and party, to Es Souan, and back again to Cairo, for the sum of two hundred and twenty-five pounds in gold, giving them fifteen days’ stoppage on the voyage, at any place or places they may wish to stop or remain at, and providing donkeys and guides for visiting any such places.
For the first fifteen days of stoppage, exceeding the above period, that they may wish to remain below the first cataract, they will pay to Mohammed Abd-el-Atti the sum of three pounds fifteen shillings per diem.
For any period they may wish to remain below the first cataract, after the expiration of the above provided period, they shall pay Mohammed Abd-el-Atti the sum of three pounds per day for each day.
Should the above parties, after their arrival at the first cataract, wish to proceed to the second cataract, Mohammed Abd-el-Atti agrees to take them on in the same boat, and same style, and they shall then pay him the sum of sixty-seven pounds ten shillings for the trip between the two cataracts and back, and they shall have three days for stoppage, for visiting such places as they may desire. And if they shall desire to stop more than three days above the first cataract, then, for every day of stoppage above three, they shall pay him at the rate of three pounds per day.
It is, moreover, fully understood that Mohammed Abd-el-Atti is to pay all presents on the voyage; to pay all donkey hire, guides, guards, etc.; to pay the expenses of taking the boat up and down the cataracts, and all and every present to crew, sailors, reis, pilot, or persons on shore, during, and at the end of the voyage.
It is understood that, if the party should go to the second cataract, then the provision for days of stoppage over fifteen days below the first cataract is altered, and they shall pay Mohammed Abd-el-Atti, in that case, only three pounds per day over the first fifteen days provided for, for every day more than such fifteen that they may wish to stop.

Dated, at Cairo, this 27th day of October, 1855.

N.B. The boat is to be procured and equipped, and the trip to commence as soon as possible.

Signed by the Americans.
Sealed by Mohammed Abd-el-Atti.

Under this contract he selected a boat, which we examined and approved, and he proceeded to fit and furnish her. When this was done we hoisted the American flag, and, for a signal, a white flag with one large blue star in the centre, and named her from the name of a boat not unknown to fame in our home circles, The Phantom.
There was something pleasant in the idea of calling our Nile boat, that spread her lofty wings on the air, white and very ghost-like in the light of a November moon in Egypt, by the name of that gallant boat which has weathered so many Atlantic gales along the coast of America, and with which many recollections of pleasant days, and pleasant life, and beloved friends, are connected.

[...]

We reached Benisoefat noon on the third day, and while strolling through the narrow bazaars, with their cupboard shops, I was not a little amused at the dragoman’s method of treating his countrymen. Travelers should take a native dragoman in preference to a Maltese on this account, that the inhabitants have no fear of a Maltese before their eyes, and insult travelers without hesitation and without being punished, when they are attended by a foreigner.

But the presence of a native dragoman does not always protect from insulting language.

I did not, but Abd-el-Atti did, overhear a remark made by one of three men seated in a shop front, somewhat derogatory to the character of Christians in general, with particular reference to me. He wheeled in an instant, but the Arab was too quick for him, and vanished around a corner, leaving his shoes on the ground in fiont of the shop, and his two companions sitting within it. With one of the shoes Abd-el-Atti beat one of the scoundrels, and with the other shoe he thrashed the other, finishing each castigation by throwing the shoe into the face of the victim, adding a little advice to keep better company. Abdel-Atti was by no means satisfied with the escape of the chief offender, and ten minutes afterward, as we returned that way, proposed to surround him. It was probable he had by this time returned to talk over the affair with his friends. Abd-el-Atti walked on unobserved, and having passed the shop, gave me a signal. We closed up, and he sprang like a cat on his prey.

Never was man more astounded. Abd-el-Atti had snatched a stick from a by-stander, and showered blows on the back and head of the offender, until he made a sudden bolt to escape, and, in his intense haste, stumbled over a boy, and went six feet into the dirt, taking a piece of skin off from his nose-quite large enough to keep him employed in better business for some days, than insulting travelers. Fifty turbaned shop-keepers looked on all this with motionless countenances, neither approving nor disapproving, by word or gesture, though I thought I could detect a smile of satisfaction in some of their dark eyes as he bit the dust.

From Boat Life in Egypt and Nubia
by William C. Prime, 1857