登陆注册
15489300000031

第31章 CHAPTER XIII. GOING FOR TOM'S PIPE:(1)

BY AND BY we left Jim to float around up there in the neighborhood of the pyramids, and we clumb down to the hole where you go into the tunnel, and went in with some Arabs and candles, and away in there in the middle of the pyramid we found a room and a big stone box in it where they used to keep that king, just as the man in the Sunday-school said; but he was gone, now; somebody had got him. But I didn't take no interest in the place, because there could be ghosts there, of course; not fresh ones, but I don't like no kind.

So then we come out and got some little donkeys and rode a piece, and then went in a boat another piece, and then more donkeys, and got to Cairo; and all the way the road was as smooth and beautiful a road as ever I see, and had tall date-pa'ms on both sides, and naked children everywhere, and the men was as red as copper, and fine and strong and handsome. And the city was a curiosity. Such narrow streets -- why, they were just lanes, and crowded with people with turbans, and women with veils, and everybody rigged out in blazing bright clothes and all sorts of colors, and you wondered how the camels and the people got by each other in such narrow little cracks, but they done it -- a perfect jam, you see, and everybody noisy. The stores warn't big enough to turn around in, but you didn't have to go in; the storekeeper sat tailor fashion on his counter, smoking his snaky long pipe, and had his things where he could reach them to sell, and he was just as good as in the street, for the camel-loads brushed him as they went by.

Now and then a grand person flew by in a carriage with fancy dressed men running and yelling in front of it and whacking anybody with a long rod that didn't get out of the way. And by and by along comes the Sultan riding horseback at the head of a procession, and fairly took your breath away his clothes was so splendid; and everybody fell flat and laid on his stomach while he went by. I forgot, but a feller helped me to remember. He was one that had a rod and run in front.

There was churches, but they don't know enough to keep Sunday; they keep Friday and break the Sab-bath. You have to take off your shoes when you go in. There was crowds of men and boys in the church, setting in groups on the stone floor and making no end of noise -- getting their lessons by heart, Tom said, out of the Koran, which they think is a Bible, and people that knows better knows enough to not let on. I never see such a big church in my life before, and most awful high, it was; it made you dizzy to look up; our village church at home ain't a circumstance to it; if you was to put it in there, people would think it was a drygoods box.

What I wanted to see was a dervish, because I was interested in dervishes on accounts of the one that played the trick on the camel-driver. So we found a lot in a kind of a church, and they called themselves Whirling Dervishes; and they did whirl, too. I never see anything like it. They had tall sugar-loaf hats on, and linen petticoats; and they spun and spun and spun, round and round like tops, and the petticoats stood out on a slant, and it was the prettiest thing I ever see, and made me drunk to look at it. They was all Moslems, Tom said, and when I asked him what a Moslem was, he said it was a person that wasn't a Presbyterian. So there is plenty of them in Missouri, though I didn't know it before.

We didn't see half there was to see in Cairo, because Tom was in such a sweat to hunt out places that was celebrated in history. We had a most tiresome time to find the granary where Joseph stored up the grain before the famine, and when we found it it warn't worth much to look at, being such an old tumble-down wreck; but Tom was satisfied, and made more fuss over it than I would make if I stuck a nail in my foot.

How he ever found that place was too many for me.

We passed as much as forty just like it before we come to it, and any of them would 'a' done for me, but none but just the right one would suit him; I never see any-body so particular as Tom Sawyer. The minute he struck the right one he reconnized it as easy as I would reconnize my other shirt if I had one, but how he done it he couldn't any more tell than he could fly; he said so himself.

Then we hunted a long time for the house where the boy lived that learned the cadi how to try the case of the old olives and the new ones, and said it was out of the Arabian Nights, and he would tell me and Jim about it when he got time. Well, we hunted and hunted till I was ready to drop, and I wanted Tom to give it up and come next day and git somebody that knowed the town and could talk Missourian and could go straight to the place; but no, he wanted to find it himself, and nothing else would answer. So on we went. Then at last the remarkablest thing happened I ever see. The house was gone -- gone hundreds of years ago -- every last rag of it gone but just one mud brick. Now a person wouldn't ever believe that a backwoods Missouri boy that hadn't ever been in that town before could go and hunt that place over and find that brick, but Tom Sawyer done it. I know he done it, because I see him do it. I was right by his very side at the time, and see him see the brick and see him reconnize it. Well, I says to myself, how DOES he do it? Is it knowledge, or is it instink?

Now there's the facts, just as they happened: let everybody explain it their own way. I've ciphered over it a good deal, and it's my opinion that some of it is knowledge but the main bulk of it is instink. The reason is this: Tom put the brick in his pocket to give to a museum with his name on it and the facts when he went home, and I slipped it out and put another brick considerable like it in its place, and he didn't know the difference -- but there was a difference, you see. I think that settles it -- it's mostly instink, not knowledge.

同类推荐
  • 杨子法言

    杨子法言

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 班马异同论

    班马异同论

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 荣枯鉴

    荣枯鉴

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 双龙传

    双龙传

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON

    FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
热门推荐
  • 绝色杀手妃:废柴五小姐

    绝色杀手妃:废柴五小姐

    她,21世纪第一的绝色杀手,却在偶然之间穿越,成了洛府最废材的五小姐。他,秦国最为出色的,也是最为强势霸道的王爷,天赋无人能及。世人皆知她是洛府的草包废柴女,人人避之不及,只有他一直追逐着她,当冷漠腹黑对上霸道强势,又会擦出怎样的火花呢?
  • 光阴荏苒,片片纷飞

    光阴荏苒,片片纷飞

    四年前,他将她伤得体无完肤;四年后,他从国外回来,想要再与她和好如初。而她还会轻易地答应吗?“你究竟怎样才肯放过我?”“这一辈子我都决不会放过你了!”“我已经不喜欢你了,你为什么非要缠着我呢!”“我要缠到你重新喜欢我为止。”……读者群号:563941070欢迎大家加入哦!
  • 纪道

    纪道

    纪道天元三三七年,一个弃婴被带回了辰风谷,十几年后婴儿长大成人。成为一个中二少年!“师弟,这孩子是不是傻?”辰风掌门看着说道!“呃……师兄,我觉的这孩子很单纯!”“……”看一个傻白甜的少年如何踏上修仙路!
  • 神女九公主

    神女九公主

    天上的神女九公主,因被大魔头打下凡尘。后在凡间经历了许许多多。在凡尘她的哥哥喜欢她,而认识了一个叫宁轩的男子。而九公主又会和谁有怎样的故事呢?
  • 剑血路

    剑血路

    惨遭暗杀,却不知仇家是谁,侥幸逃得一命,只能暗中壮大伺机报仇,却不幸引出了更大阴谋......
  • 奥斯曼大帝

    奥斯曼大帝

    这是一个游戏性质的魔幻时代,在这里,任何人都没有真正性的死亡,每一次死亡都会复活。复活之后只会扣除一点经验作为死亡的惩罚。每个人都有一个经验条和各种属性。这就是——奥斯曼大陆。作为第一个来到奥斯曼的亡魂,接待他的是光明与黑暗之神的女儿。故事就这样开始咧。
  • 指间花落已成殇

    指间花落已成殇

    闺蜜的背叛,一步步对她赶尽杀绝.................“宫雅漓,你得到的太多,现在,该还了”女孩闭上了眼睛,风吹起了几缕发丝,心底绝望,等待死亡的降临另一个女孩伸手,推下了她泪,流了出来;痛,已经麻木;“雅漓!”...........................................三年后,她带着仇恨,回到了这个城市.........................她已经有能力去报仇雪恨,世界第一杀手“魈魅”.........................
  • 紫昭

    紫昭

    百年前,魔界拥有紫色瞳眸的第一美女紫昭爱上了仙界的忘川仙尊,两人情正浓时,却突然间知道了对方的身份,两人约好一起在仙界二十年一次的的大会上宣布:仙界再无忘川,魔界再无紫昭,打算双双归隐。却没想到发生了意外,紫昭自尽,忘川重伤昏迷近百年,魔界、仙界暂时恢复平静。百年后,一名叫澌虞的女孩拜入清遥山忘川仙尊门下,在几年后的仙界大会大放光彩,引来仙界、魔界关注。忘川无意中发现在澌虞极为愤怒时眼睛会变成紫色,可这件事却也被一直关注他们的一个人发现,两人又一次的面对相似的困境。却不知这次劫数却让二人记起了万年前的事。二人的那时和之后······
  • 幻道魔君

    幻道魔君

    看一个铁血少年的复仇之路,一步一步称霸洪魂!
  • 天宫斗

    天宫斗

    云麟生前是人间界一个赫赫有名的超级杀手,死后却成了在地府杀狱中服刑的一介小小亡魂。但他始终相信,虽然面对庞大的天庭地府、诸天十界神圣以及那漫天仙神佛魔妖,他云麟只是一个不堪一击的弱小孤魂,但总有一天,他也会超脱那万世之生死轮回,跳脱天地五行之外,成为永生不死、自在逍遥的天地霸主的。但,他能成功吗?作者友情提示:本书构思多年,三易其稿,旨在打造一部将《封神榜》排除在神话体系之外的东方神魔小说,虽然限于才情资质,未必能尽绘神魔风采之万一,但完本还是有保证滴,如果喜欢,就请收藏一下啦。