The Sentimental Traveller
la fact, if there must be such a feeling, the people who show
it are preferable to those who don't, though one wishes
that, in the days when we had it in our power to give them
a model of behaviour, we had given them a nicer one to
go by. However, I greeted Salim Beg in a polite manner
when next I saw him, and found to my surprise that he
came up, still with his imitation of Western curtness, but
with an amiable intention. After this he was brought
to see me one day, and it was while looking at the debris
from various Babylonian mounds and at the odds and ends
of antiques in my room that we started the discussion.
I have mentioned Salim because I happened to think
of him, but the same words might have been said by nearly
every young effendi in the country who takes an interest
in affairs. They hate the old with an almost venomous
hatred. It is not by enthusing over Babylon and Nineveh,
or the picturesque untidiness of water carriers, porters,
and Beduin, that one will find oneself in sympathy with
the young intelligentsia. *e All you look for in this country
is what you can find in the Bible/* said one young man,
who appeared to have been meeting more missionaries
than he could assimilate.
I must say that I have a great deal of sympathy with
this point of view. It would annoy us all if the people
who stayed in our houses were so interested in our great-