Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/95

Rh of human flies which buzzes round and settles upon the visitor at the gates of every temple and on the steps of every tomb in Egypt; and he would then, no doubt, have proved himself as pertinaciously importunate, as imperturbably good-humoured, as impenetrably proof against every known form of appeal, protest, or denunciation as is now the most widely exasperating of their number. And how much that is to say of him! What an unbounded tribute to his powers of provocation and his willingness to provoke! Our familiar English definition of such or such a man as "one who will not take No for an answer" would be a deplorably inadequate description of the Egyptian "bakshish fly," the donkey-boy and his fellow-nuisances.

Take No for an answer, indeed! They will not take it for an answer in any tongue spoken of man, whether in the East or West. They will not take it in any tone expressive of any variety of emotion, or appropriated to any mode of address—in the tone of amiable