(Opening Scene: Cairo Station, on the platform of a departing train) Jamil, a Dragoman (played by Ramon Novarro)- You are going back to the land where you belong. Attractive Woman, an American Tourist (passionately, drawing out her vowels)- To Iowa. Jamil- May Allah give you courage… (taking off his ring, made of tin)- An heirloom, from the sepulcher of my fathers. American Tourist- No, I couldn’t take it. Jamil- Please, a simple souvenir, from a poor Dragoman who showed you the secrets of the desert. (American Tourist reciprocates, giving him her gold ring and leaning in for a kiss.)
-The Barbarian (1933), aka A Night in Cairo
I suppose that Cairo has its share of foreign tourist scammers, but in Marrakesh they have perfected the fine art of the duplicitous rip-off. Nonetheless I turned the tables on an oleaginous guy I couldn’t shake off, a complete phony it turned out later but what I’d suspected all along, who claimed to be the good friend of someone I knew back home, hoping to wring some unearned cash out of me. I told him to come by my hotel before I left the next day, To settle our accounts, I said, but I was on that night’s train to Fez, undetected.