In passing, the flies of Egypt deserve a tribute to their peculiar qualities.  A plague of American flies would be a luxury compared to the visit of one fly from Egypt.  For untold centuries they have been in the habit of crawling over thick-skinned faces and bodies, and not being dislodged.  They can stay all day if they like.  Consequently, if they see an American eye, and they light on it, not content with that, they try to crawl in.  You attempt to brush them off, but they only move around to the other side, until you nearly go mad with nervousness from their sticky feet.  If they find out your ear they crawl in and walk around.  You cannot discourage them.  They craze you with their infuriating persistence.  If I had been the Egyptians, the Israelites would have been escorted out of the country in state at the arrival of the first fly.

England has done a marvellous good to Egypt by her training.  She has taken a lot of worthless rascals and educated them to work at something, no matter if it does take five of them to call a cab.  She has trained them to make good soldiers, well drilled because drilled by English officers, and making a creditable showing.  She has made fairly dependable policemen of them, but their legs are the most wabbly and crooked of any that ever were seen.  These policemen are armed.  One carries a pistol and the other the cartridges.  If they happened to be together they could be very dangerous to criminals.  She has developed all the resources of the country, and made it fat and productive, but she never can give the common people brains.

It poured rain this morning, and there is no drainage; consequently, rivers of water were rushing down the gutters, making crossings impassable and traffic impossible.  They called out the fire-engines to pump the water up in the main thoroughfare, but on a side street I stopped the carriage for half an hour and watched four Arabs working at the problem.  One walked in with a broom and swept the water down the gutter to another man who had a dust-pan.  With this dustpan he scooped up as much as a pint of water at a time, and poured it into a tin pail, which gave occupation to the third Arab, who stood in a bent position and urged him on.  The fourth Arab then took this pail of water, ran out, and emptied it into the middle of the street, and the water beat him running back to the gutter.  I said to them, “Why don’t you use a sieve?  It would take longer.”  And they said, “No speak English.”

I watched them until I grew tired, and then I went to the ostrich-farm as a sort of distraction, and I really think that an ostrich has more brains than an Arab.