Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/244

those of the passengers who "felt like it" had landed and made their way on foot or donkey-back to the Mudîr's house, to be presented to that worshipful functionary and receive from him the ceremonial coffee and cigarette, it became necessary for the chief of the police to break it gently to the spokesman of the party that the hospitable design of the Governor would have to be foregone. His house was over a mile from the shore; the crowd, drawn together from many miles round by the Khedivial visit, was dense, and, except under the actual kourbash, inclined to be disorderly; and, to put the matter briefly, there was not enough kourbash to "go round." In other words, the chief of the police did not see his way to providing an escort sufficiently large to conduct a party some five and twenty strong, and largely consisting of ladies, in safety from the steamer to the Mudîr's "At Home." The male passengers might risk their less valuable lives—or garments—by endeavouring to