An Invitation for Dinner

Next day we arrived at Cairo, and I found at Shepheard’s an invitation for dinner from De Cosson Bey, who controls and manages all the great public utilities of Cairo. He married a Philadelphia belle who had often visited at my house in New York, so we had a very pleasant evening, rehearsing the scenes and experiences of auld lang syne. The evening was a social oasis in a strange land and quickly taught me how they live and what they do in Cairo. My hostess spoke the language like a native and managed her Arabic ménage with skill, à plomb and distinction. I ate and drank many strange concoctions never previously included in any menu I had ever had the pleasure of exhausting. I did not dare to ask the names of the rare dishes, as I might not have liked them if I had – sometimes one had better not “know it all,” or even a part of it. To be thoroughly happy in a case like this it is best to leave minute details and even a general knowledge of such things to the inquisitive. I had, however, sufficient curiosity to speculate on the dishes, and have made a tentative menu of them, assuming the courses, from their color, flavor and general appearance, to be as follows:

The De Cossons lived in the suburbs, about two miles out on the road to the Pyramids, in a detached place without a street or a number, and quite hard to find when the sun had set. My hostess had prepared an elaborate map in two colors, red and blue, showing where I was to go and what I was to do and say after crossing the great steel bridge that spans the Nile. Armed with this formidable document, I went to the noble bandit who controls the carriage service in front of Shepheard’s, and in a confidential whisper explained the map and the circumstances to him, at the same time slipping into his extended, yawning paw a wad of bakshish. I stipulated that I must have a driver who understood at least some English. He made a great show of grasping the intricacies of the map and the instructions that went with it, and presently, with a wild gleam in his eye, as if he had found a sure way to his “graft,” he announced that he was ready and willing to take all responsibility. He had an official, high-backed chair on the sidewalk and asked me to use it till he returned. Then darting into the darkness, he quickly found a man (who looked like the First Murderer in Macbeth) on whom he could depend to rob me and divide the spoils with him. Dressed in his flowing oriental robes as Cairo’s most abandoned criminal, he shook me warmly by the hand and whispered, as I stepped into the carriage: “I have arranged everything.” I had a sufficient glimmering of what was going on to meekly pipe to him: “Yes, I haven’t the slightest doubt of it.”

We started out at a brisk pace which soon relaxed into a funereal jog, and went on and on through narrow, squalid streets till we reached the Nile. Although I had given myself an extra hour for emergencies, I became impatient and asked him: “But where is the big bridge with the bronze sphinxes on it that we are to cross?” He sadly wailed in reply: “Ah, sahib, it ees so hard to find eet in the dark!”
In a burst of sarcastic anger, I shouted at him: “Well, get off and light a match, and maybe you’ll hit it by accident!” Assuming with an innocent look that I had spoken seriously, he took me at my word, jumped off his perch, lit a match and peered all round him. Then I got “real” angry, and told him De Cosson Bey kept a professional torture chamber, and that I would have him ground to sausage meat if he trifled with me another moment. Well knowing the impotence of my “hot air” blast, he simply smiled and took up his burthen of “finding” the bridge. This he soon accomplished, as it was about as easy to find as a saloon in the “Great White Way.” The instructions accompanying the map stated that the Maison Antonion was on the left of the Pyramid Road after three crossroads had been passed. I began to look out for and count the roads, so when we had crossed two and were approaching a third I halted the Jehu and said: “This is the third road; turn down here.”
“No, sahib, eet is de private entrance to Hunter Pasha’s palace, an’ he keep de mos’ wicket dogs you ever see in awl yo’ life.’’

So on we went till I began to realize that the kidnapper was trying to take me out to the Pyramids for a late dinner with the Sphinx. It was clear moonlight and I saw an English lady walking along the road. I tried to have the driver stop, but he pretended that he did not understand me, so I jumped out and, profusely apologizing to the lady, explained my emergency. She said: “Why, you are a mile past De Cosson Bey’s place: there it is with the flagstaff on the tower.”

Then she had a heart-to-heart talk in Arabic with my friend and we returned briskly to the “third road.” I halted the procession for a settlement about fifty yards from the house, well knowing that trouble was coming in pyramids, and feeling that I did not wish to assault the ears of my hosts with the clash which was now inevitable and which would undoubtedly contain a large percentage of language that could hardly be called diplomatic. He demanded about ten times the regular fare. I protested, but he explained that after sunset all fares were double and charged by the hour, at that; and that when the Nile had been crossed the driver had the privilege of fixing the fare according to the circumstances. This vested right, he claimed, had not been disputed since his ancestors had driven Napoleon out to the battle of the Pyramids a century ago. I could not deny his statement as I had not been among those present, but I reduced the settlement to a compromise by threatening to spring on him the Hessian troops that De Cosson Bey retained for such occasions. Then we drove up to the house as genially as if we had been long parted relatives, and I supposed we held the secrets of the passage of arms between ourselves. But I was mistaken, for I noticed at dinner that my hosts smiled knowingly at each other as if they had some amusing thought in common. When I could stand this no longer I asked what they were laughing at. “Why, at your stopping so near the house for the usual stormy, cab-fare settlement. Wise visitors always settle out on the Pyramid Road, so they may regain their composure before alighting. We threw up the windows and heard every word of the picturesque, verbal duel, and we came to the conclusion when the flag fell that the oriental had had his hands full throughout the entire entertainment.”

from A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel
by S.G. Bayne, 1909