It is a week since I arrived in Mecco, and for the first time I have
leisure to write up my journal. The life of a Foreign Observer is very
strenuous, for the Meccanian method of seeing everything according
to programme and timetable is very fatiguing. Already I feel that
a holiday will be welcome at the end of my tour. In the whole of
this vast city of Mecco there is nothing casual, nothing incidental,
nothing unprovided for. Although I am only a spectator, I feel like
a little cog in the huge complicated machine. The machine seems to
absorb everything; the individual counts for nothing. That is perhaps
the reason why it seems impossible to get into contact with any human
being other than the officials who instruct me and conduct me every
moment of my time. I begin to wonder whether the individual Meccanian
really exists, or whether his personality is merged in the official
personality which is all that is visible to me.
To resume the record of my experiences. Before I left Bridgetown,
Sub-Conductor Sheep repeated his opinion that in choosing Tour No. 1,
which allowed only a week for the study of an important town, I had
revealed my incapacity as a Foreign Observer. He evidently put me down
in one of the pigeon-holes of his mind as a mere tourist--a creature
almost extinct in Meccania. The day before my departure I paid the
bill for his services, which were reckoned at the modest rate of 16s.
a day. My hotel bill was also discharged, and I proceeded to my final
interview with the Police Authorities. I had to submit to another
disinfecting bath, but apart from this the medical examination was a
formality.
At the Police Office, Inspector of Foreigners Stiff was very sarcastic
at my expense. "So you think there is nothing more to be learnt in
Bridgetown," he remarked. "It is not more than ten days since you left
Luniland, and you think yourself qualified to proceed to the very
centre of our national Culture. Evidently your stay in Luniland has not
improved whatever powers of appreciation you may have possessed; but
that is what one would expect from that country of amateurs, charlatans
and cranks. You have seen nothing of our Museum, our Art Collections,
our Libraries: you are not interested in such things. How, then, do you
suppose you will be able to appreciate what you will find in Mecco? We
do our best to assist all Foreign Observers, but it is rather a waste
of time to provide an experienced and qualified Conductor for persons
who are so clever that they only require a week to learn all there
is to know in a whole city. However," he added, "the law with respect
to Foreign Observers does not forbid you to proceed to Mecco. You
have your medical certificate, I suppose, to show that you are still
disease-free?" I produced it. "Have you notified the Railway Authority
of your intention to travel to Mecco?" I had not done so.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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