Hashish by Henry De Monfreid

Author:Henry De Monfreid [De Monfreid, Henry]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Penguin UK
Published: 2007-07-05T07:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FOUR

Suez

It turned out just as well that I had relieved the boutre of all her cargo. Native customs agents came and poked into every hole and corner of the Fat-el-Rahman, even into the compass. Not that they had the slightest suspicion of anything, but it amused them to rummage, or maybe they hoped I would offer them baksheesh to go away, and not turn everything upside down. I might have saved myself by doing this if I had had anything on board, but the very fact of having paid would have engendered suspicion. The classic trick of the amiable customs officer has been too often played. After settling with him, one can expect a surprise visit.

At last about noon I was able to set foot on Egyptian soil, in order to go into town. Port Tewfik is a town which sprang up when the canal was being pierced. Everything is new and modern in it, and it contains nothing but houses for government employees and garden cities for workmen. These last are quite smart, consisting of gilded cages of barracks in which the men who work on the canal live with their families, with tiny gardens where the women-folk can squabble while the men are working at riveting metal plates or having a drink at the pub. I looked for a restaurant where I could have a real meal with white bread, hors d’oeuvre and a table-napkin, but it was in vain that I strolled up and down avenues bordered with flowers, lawns and bronze statues. I should have to go to Old Suez, about two and a half miles inland.

A local train runs between Port Tewfik and Suez. At the station the platform was crowded with native workmen and clerks coming back from their work at the docks. I looked at the Arabs dressed in long shirts. They were handsome and well built, but very dirty, as was natural in a country where they could not live without clothes. I was deeply absorbed in my meditations, when someone slapped me on the back. I started as if I had been shot, and looking round, recognized Alexandros.

‘I arrived this morning,’ he said in answer to my look of surprised interrogation; ‘I came to Port Tewfik to wait for you, since you had made an appointment with me for the eighteenth. Did you have a pleasant voyage?’

‘Not bad. And you?’

I was disconcerted at the lack of surprise he showed at finding me up to time. Anyone might have thought I had only to take the train. To tell the truth, my punctuality was a matter of chance, but otherwise it would have been a remarkable achievement. This man with his placid smile, his big nose, his sleepy eyes and the slight trembling of his tobacco-stained fingers which constantly played with his amber rosary, brought back vividly to my mind the atmosphere of the cafés I had seen in his company at Port Said. How indeed, I thought pityingly, could this poor

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