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Updated: June 9, 2025
'Through at the banker's, he recommended me to the Hotel , where I would find a good table, clean rooms, and none of my English compatriots. I love my native land and my countrymen in it, but as for them out of it, and as Bohemians ugh! I am too much of a wolf myself to love wolves. Arrived at the hotel, with my head swimming with palm-trees, railroad, turbans, tarbooshes, veiled women, camels, pipes, dust, donkeys, oceans of blue calico, groaning water-wheels, the Nile, far-off view of the Pyramids, etc., I at once asked the headwaiter for a room, water, towels; he passed me into the hands of a very tall Berber answering to the name of Yusef, who was dressed in flowing garments and tarboosh, and who was one of the gentlest beings entitled to wear breeches I have ever seen; he had feet that in my recollection seem a yard long, and how he managed to move so noiselessly, unless both pedals were soft-shod, worries me to the present time. Well, at six o'clock the gong sounded for dinner, and out I went over marble floors to the dining hall, where I found only three other guests, who saluted me courteously when I entered, and at a signal from Yusef, a compromise between a bow and a salaam, we seated ourselves at table. Of the three guests, one was particularly a marked man, apart from his costume, that of a cavalry officer in the Pacha's service; there was something grand in his face, large blue eyes, full of humor and bonhommie, a prominent nose, a broad forehead, burned brown with the sun, his head covered with the omnipresent tarboosh, a mustache like Cartouche's; such was my vis-
Our travelers entered Bourgaltaï in the evening, simultaneously with the caravan of camels, which had started a fortnight before, and were lodged in a squalid and filthy inn. Nothing, however, could disturb the cheerful temperament of Madame de Bourboulon, who rose superior to every inconvenience or vexation, and this bonhommie is the chief charm of her book.
We are convinced, if he had been early a popular poet, he would have borne his honours meekly, and would have been a person of great bonhommie and frankness of disposition. But the sense of injustice and of undeserved ridicule sours the temper and narrows the views. To have produced works of genius, and to find them neglected or treated with scorn, is one of the heaviest trials of human patience.
The bonhommie of travel disappeared, and was succeeded by the most thorough selfishness in collective and individual bodies. Scrambles for the first choice of state-rooms, the first seat at table, and the first drink at the bar, became a part of the new régime. The ladies were little regarded in the hurly-burly of steamboat life.
It must be acknowledged that the French have invariably proved the kindest and most considerate of masters, and the state of bondage is much mitigated in the islands which appertain to that nation. The reason is obvious: in France, there is a bonhommie, a degree of equality, established between the different grades of society by universal politeness.
He had the faculty then, which he has ever since preserved, of getting hold of the affections of the people. This bonhommie has had much to do with his popularity and success. I recollect well how lustily he was cheered by the staunch old farmers on the occasion referred to. A few years later a contest came off in the county of Prince Edward, where I then resided.
"He keeps the letter, then, while he releases the messenger!" "Ay, that does he, and all for the sake of what you call your 'bonhommie, I would venture, if the truth was known, the fellow's grandfather taught the noble science of dancing." "But what says the scout? he has eyes and ears, and a tongue: what verbal report does he make?"
I sought to break down his reserve, and make myself acceptable to him, by the display of a discreet geniality, and a certain frankness, not falling into familiarity, which should seem to proceed from sympathy, and a bonhommie, that, assured of its own kindly purpose, would take no account of his almost angry distance. The opportunity was auspicious, and I was on the alert to turn it to account.
There is a lackadaisical bonhommie about his whole aspect, none of the fierceness of pride or power; an unconscious neglect of his own person, instead of a stately assumption of superiority; a good-humoured, placid intelligence, instead of a lynx-eyed watchfulness, as if it wished to make others its prey, or was afraid they might turn and rend him; he is a beneficent spirit, prying into the universe, not lording it over it; a thoughtful spectator of the scenes of life, or ruminator on the fate of mankind, not a painted pageant, a stupid idol set up on its pedestal of pride for men to fall down and worship with idiot fear and wonder at the thing themselves have made, and which, without that fear and wonder, would in itself be nothing!
That explains a lot!" Dundee conceded handsomely. "I just wondered, amidst all this bonhommie of 'Bill' and 'Penny, why I " "I only call Mr. Sanderson 'Bill' when I forget!" the small creature defended herself sharply. "Goodness knows I try to be an efficient private secretary!
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