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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 16 - 22 November 2000 Issue No.508 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 16 - 22 November 2000 Issue No.508
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Risky rides
Indigenous taxis drivers may be following their own drummer (or meter) but they are a definite improvement on their ancestors, the Cairo cabmen who used to transport Lord Edward Cecil on his various errands at the turn of the century. Below is an extract from The Leisure Of An Egyptian Official (Parkway Publishing, 1996) where he describes his ride to the club:
"As usual I appear to have got the worst cab obtainable. That is because I told Suleiman to get me one, and he charges too high a fee or commission...Suleiman who follows the custom of the country most religiously takes a commission on everything he buys for me and even from the cabman he calls at my request. But as I have indicated before, he is a lover of wealth, and consequently his terms are so high that only cabs which can get no other custom come when he calls...Without discussing the merits of this system as a whole, the particular result is that I am now in a cab of which the horses are living skeletons, the driver filthier and more crassly stupid than most of his fellows, the harness composed of relics of leather tied together with rags and string, the covering of the seats in holes, the springs half on one side, and the wheels with a spoke or two missing from each.
"We jolt along until, meeting another carriage, the driver pulls up, upon which the harness breaks in one or two places, and he gets down to mend it with a piece of chain, some thin string, and what looks like an old necktie. This done we rock on again until suddenly the weak spring finally 'goes' with a crash; we again pull up, and I get out. Luckily I am only a hundred yards from the club, so I walk there, while my driver begins to repair the spring with a bootlace.
"I was really 'well out of it' as these cabs may break down anywhere, and it is lucky if it occurs in a by-street and not in the way of effendi-driven motors. No accident is impossible in these cabs. On one occasion the driver pulled up his horses with a vigour and both reins braking simultaneously (as the string they were tied up with was worn and probably of inferior quality), the driver performed a sort of back somersault, and arrived in a sitting posture on me. On another occasion a similar recklessness on the part of the Jehu led to the whole harness falling off the horse, who trotted away, leaving us gravely seated in a horseless carriage."
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