Egypt : handbook for travellers / edited by K. Baedeker.

Date:
1885-1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Egypt : handbook for travellers / edited by K. Baedeker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the shopkeepers, from whom they receive 10-20 per cent on all ar- ticles purchased hy travellers under their guidance. Travellers are cautioned against purchasing antiquities, their exportation being moreover strictly prohibited (p. 6). Spurious ‘antiquities’ (particularly scarabsei) are largely manufactured both in Egypt and Syria, and the name is unhesitatingly applied to everything in the seller’s possession, especially in Upper Egypt, if he sees that the traveller is disposed to make purchases of the kind. Remains of mummies are frequently offered for sale in the neighbourhood of all the ancient burial-places. Both at Alexandria and Cairo there are goods-agents (pp. 206, 235), who will undertake the transmission of all purchases to the traveller’s home at moderate cost. Their services are especially re- commended if the traveller intends making a tour through the con- tinent of Europe on his return from Egypt, in which case every new article, or object not intended for personal use, is liable to duty at half-a-dozen different frontiers. (15). Intercourse with. Orientals. Orientals reproach Europeans with doing everything the wrong way, such as writing from left to right, while they do the reverse, and uncovering the head on entering a room, while they remove their shoes, but keep their heads covered. The following rules should be observed in paying a visit at an Oriental house. The visitor knocks at the door with the iron knocker attached to it, whereupon the question Lmin (who is there?) is usually asked from within. The visitor answers, ‘if tali (open). In the case of Muslim houses the visitor has to wait outside for a few minutes in order to give the women who happen to be in the court time to retire. He is then conducted into the reception-room, where a low divan or sofa runs round three sides of the room, the place of honour always being exactly opposite the door. According to the greater or less degree of respect which the host desires to show for his guest he rises more or less from his seat, and approaches one or more steps towards him. The first enquiries are concerning the health (see p. 199); the salutation lSalam aleikum is re- served for Muslims. The transaction of business in the East always involves a prodigious waste of time, and as Orientals attach no value whatever to their time, the European will often find his pa- tience sorely tried. If a visitor drops in and interrupts the business, it would be an unpardonable affront to dismiss him on the plea of being engaged. Again, when a visitor is announced at meal-time, it is de rigueur to invite him, at least as a matter of form, to partake. At all other hours of the day visitors are supplied with coffee, which a servant, with his left hand on his heart, presents to each according to his rank. Under the coffee-cup (finydn) there is