_The Story of Cairo_
_First Edition, April_ 1902
_Second Edition, April_ 1906
_All rights reserved_
[Illustration: CAIRO FROM THE SOUTH-WEST: THE LAKE OF THE ELEPHANT
(BIRKAT-EL-FIL)]
_The Story of_ Cairo
_by Stanley Lane-Poole
Litt.D. M.A. Professor of Arabic
at Trinity College Dublin_
[Decoration]
_London: J. M. Dent & Co.
Aldine House_ 29 _and_ 30 _Bedford Street
Covent Garden W.C._ * * 1906
HE WHO HATH NOT SEEN CAIRO HATH NOT SEEN THE WORLD.
HER SOIL IS GOLD;
HER NILE IS A MARVEL;
HER WOMEN ARE AS THE BRIGHT-EYED HOURIS OF PARADISE;
HER HOUSES ARE PALACES, AND HER AIR IS SOFT, WITH AN ODOUR ABOVE
ALOES, REFRESHING THE HEART;
AND HOW SHOULD CAIRO BE OTHERWISE, WHEN SHE IS THE MOTHER OF THE
WORLD?
PREFACE
CAIRO is in the fullest sense a mediæval city. It had no existence
before the Middle Ages; its vigorous life as a separate Metropolis
almost coincides with the arbitrary millennium of the middle period of
history; and it still retains to this day much of its mediæval character
and aspect. The aspect is changing, but not the life. The amazing
improvements of the past twenty years have altered the Egyptian’s
material condition, but scarcely as yet touched his character. We have
given him public order and security, solvency without too heavy
taxation, an efficient administration, even-handed justice, the means of
higher education, and above all to every man his fair share of the
enriching Nile, χρυσορρόης in the truest sense, without which nothing
else avails. For all these, and especially the last, the peasant is
grateful in his way, when their merits are pointed out to him; but not
so the Cairene. The immediate blessings of the irrigation engineer are
not so prominently brought to bear upon his pressing wants, and for the
other reforms of the Firengy he cares very little. I should be sorry to
draw any discourteous comparisons with “the Ethiop,” but whatever time
and association with Europeans may do for the comely, and to my taste
none too swarthy, skin of my Cairo friend, I am convinced that he will
keep his old unregenerate mediæval heart in spite of us all.
Happily for purposes of study (I am not treating of ethics), the East
changes very slowly, and the soul of the Eastern not at all. The Cairo
jeweller, who will chaffer with you for an hour over a few piastres,
though he mixes reluctantly, shrinkingly, in the crazy, bustling
twentieth century life of Europe that rushes past him, is not of it. In
his heart of hearts he looks back longingly to the glorious old days of
the Mamlúks, to which he essentially belongs, and regrets the
excitements of those stirring times. What good, he asks, comes of all
this “worry”? Justice? More often a man had need of a little injustice,
and a respectable tradesman could usually buy that from the Kady before
these new tribunals were set up. As to fixed taxes and no extortion,
that is chiefly a matter for the stupid fellahín; and after all the old
system worked beautifully when you shirked payment, and your neighbour
was bastinadoed for your share. Then all this fiddling with water and
drains and streets; what is it all for? When Willcocks or Price Bey have
put pipes and patent traps and other godless improvements into the
mosques, will one’s prayers be any better than they were in the pleasant
pervasive odour of the old fetid tanks? The streets are broader, no
doubt, to let the Firengis, Allah blacken their faces! roll by in their
two-horsed ‘arabíyas and splash the Faithful with mud; but for this
wonderful boon they have taken away the comfortable stone benches from
before the shops, and the Cairo tradesman misses his old seat, where
unlimited _keyf_ and the meditative shibúk once whiled away the leisure
of his never pressing avocations. No; pure water and drains, and
bicycles and tramcars, and a whole array of wretched little black-coated
efendis pretending to imitate the Káfirs may be all very well in their
place, but they are ugly, uninteresting things, and life at Cairo has
been desperately dull since they came in.
In one of the suggestive essays in his delightful book on “Asia and
Europe,” Mr Meredith Townsend has shown how _interesting_ life must have
been in India before England introduced order and all the virtues. The
picture might have been drawn in Cairo with trifling alterations. Life
undoubtedly was interesting in the old unregenerate days. There were
events then; something to see and think of, and possibly fly from;
plenty of blood and assassination, perhaps, but then you could always
shut and bar the strong gates of the quarter, when the Mamlúks or the
Berbers, or, worst of all, the black Sudánis, were on the war-path. Now
the gates are taken away, and there are no cavalcades of romantic
troopers, beautiful to behold in their array, to ravish your household
and give colour to life. In those days it was possible for any man of
brain and luck to rise to power and wealth, such wealth as all Cairo
could not furnish in these blank and honest times; promotion was ever at
hand, and the way was open to the strong, the cunning, and the rich.
What were a holocaust of victims, an orgy of rapine, even the deadly
ravages of periodical plague and famine, in comparison with the great
occasions, the gorgeous pomp, the endless opportunities, the infinite
variety of those unruly and tumultuous but never tedious days?
This is what the true Cairene meditates in his heart. His ideas, for
good or ill, are not as our ideas; they date back from the Middle Ages,
like his dress, his religion, his social habits, his turns of speech,
his calm insouciance, his impenetrable reserve, his inveterate negation
of “worry.” Outside the official class he is still the same man whom we
saw keeping shop or taking his venture to sea in the faithful mirror of
the Arabian Nights. Even his city preserves its mediæval tone. Much has
been destroyed by time or innovation, but the European fringe is still a
fringe, and the old Muslim city for the present defies western
influences. It has been rebuilt time after time, and every fresh
rebuilding will take away more of its charm; but enough remains to show
us what Cairo was five hundred years ago. The crowded streets of the old
quarters, the immemorial character of the houses and markets, above all
the historical monuments, carry us back to the Middle Ages.
The aim of these pages is to clothe the vestiges of the mediæval city
with the associations that lend them their deepest interest. Many of the
buildings of Cairo, especially the later mosques of the Mamlúk period,
are exquisitely beautiful, and may be admired as works of art without
regard to their history. But there are many more, ruined courts,
crumbling arcades, mere fragments of walls or inscriptions, which appeal
rather to the archæological than the æsthetic sense, and must be almost
meaningless until their story is revealed. In tracing the growth of
Cairo I have tried to surround the remains of its buildings with the
atmosphere of their historic associations. Mere topography has charms
for the antiquary alone; it is only when the material growth of a city
is interwoven with the life of its people and the character of its
rulers that topography acquires an interest for all. At the same time I
have sought to keep closely to the subject—the growth and life of the
city. This is no general history of Egypt, and many things are passed by
because they bear no intimate relation to the development of its
capital.
The authorities upon which I rely are sufficiently cited in the
footnotes. The greatest Arabic source is of course the elaborate
_Khitat_ of el-Makrízy, frequently referred to as “the Topographer,” who
wrote in the early years of the fifteenth century, but used various
topographical and historical works of much earlier date, many of which
are not otherwise accessible. The remarkable accuracy, completeness, and
research of his detailed description of Cairo need no praise of mine:
they are universally recognised. Other writers, such as el-Mas‘údy,
Násir-i-Khusrau, ‘Abd-el-Latíf, Ibn-Gubeyr (the extracts from whom I owe
to the kindness of my friend, Mr Guy le Strange, the historian of
Baghdád, and our most learned authority on the geography of the
caliphate), Ibn-Sa‘íd, Ibn-Dukmak, es-Suyúty, Abu-l-Mahásin, el-Isháky,
el-Gabárty, fill up the picture, and add valuable, personal, and
contemporary touches. Lane’s “Cairo Fifty Years Ago” has the merit of
presenting an account of the city as it was in 1835, before the
Europeanizing movement begun by Mohammad ‘Aly, and carried to the
extreme by Isma‘íl, had had time to work much change in the
characteristic aspect of the town. In archæology I am especially
beholden to the researches of MM. Max van Berchem, Ravaisse, and
Casanova. One exception I must note to the generally full references to
my sources. There is something repugnant, if not to modesty at least to
the sense of propriety, in frequently citing one’s own books. Writing
constantly on the subject of Cairo, its art, its monuments, and its
history, for many years past, it was inevitable that I should sometimes
repeat what I have said before: indeed, when we have written what we
have to say in the best shape that we are able to devise, it seems mere
affectation to try to seek a different form of expression. I have
therefore quoted, but sparingly, from my “Art of the Saracens in Egypt”
(published for the Committee of Council in 1886), my “Cairo Sketches”
(3rd ed., Virtue, 1898), my “History of Egypt in the Middle Ages”
(Methuen, 1901), and any extracts to which no footnote is appended must
be understood to refer to one of these books, generally the “History.” I
trust I may be permitted to say that for a more complete account of the
history than would be possible or desirable in the present volume the
student should consult the last of the three books above cited. Were
there any other work in English of similar scope I would gladly
substitute its title. For a much more detailed narrative of the history
of the Copts than could be here included the reader may turn to Mrs
Butcher’s “Story of the Church of Egypt” (2 vols., Smith, Elder & Co.,
1897), a work full of sympathy and appreciation for a neglected and
persecuted community, though open to criticism in its Mohammedan
relations.
I have not troubled the reader with an elaborate system of
transliteration of Arabic names. An acute accent is used merely to show
where the principal accent falls, not necessarily to indicate a long
vowel. The vowels are to be pronounced as in Italian, and the letter _g_
is employed to represent the Arabic consonant that in Cairo is
pronounced hard (as in _get_), but elsewhere usually soft (as _j_ in
_jet_). Those who are curious to know the exact transliteration should
turn to the index, where every Arabic word is given in roman letters
with diacritical points and distinction of the long vowels.
The illustrations have been chosen with a view to showing the mediæval
city as far as possible before it suffered its European change. Nothing
could be better for this purpose than the drawings made between 1826 and
1838 by Robert Hay of Linplum and by his companion Owen B. Carter (about
1830), the originals of which are preserved in the Print Room of the
British Museum, and some were lithographed in Hay’s “Illustrations of
Cairo.” These represent the mediæval remains as no modern sketches could
depict them, but Mr J. A. Symington has skilfully supplemented them,
when no older drawings could be obtained.
In conclusion I should wish to draw attention to what I have said in the
last chapter on the subject of the Commission for the Preservation of
the Monuments of Arab Art. To its vigilance and unremitting labours
during the past twenty years we owe the fact that the mosques and other
remains of Saracenic architecture are secure from demolition, and, as
far as the conditions admit, guarded from decay. Never in the history of
Cairo have its monuments been in such safe keeping, and everyone must be
grateful to each member of this invaluable committee. In the last five
years, since Lord Cromer used his influence to improve its financial
position, the Commission has been enabled to undertake very
comprehensive works of scientific restoration, and all who visit Cairo
should make a point of examining the results of its labours and
inspecting the collections gathered under the care of its chief
architect, Herz Bey, in the Museum of Arab Art.
STANLEY LANE-POOLE.
TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN,
_January 31st_, 1902.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
_The Two Cities_ 1-31
The European and the Egyptian Cairo, 1—Oriental Scenes,
2—The Conservative Tradesman, 6—His Shop, 7, and Home,
9—The Zuweyla Gate, 10—A Private House, 11—The Mandara,
14—Bedrooms, 17—Daily Life, 18—Women’s Life, 19—Cairo
Festivities, 22—The Hasaneyn, 23—The Mohammad ‘Aly
Street, 27—View from the Citadel, 28.
CHAPTER II
_The Town of the Tent_ 32-58
Successive Cities at Cairo, 32—Arab Conquest, 34—Treaty
of Amnesty, 35—The Ancient Misr, 36—Babylon and the
Mukawkis, 37—The Copts, 38—Foundation of Fustat, “the
Tent,” 40—Settlements of the Arab Tribes, 42—The Mosque
of ‘Amr, 42—The Fortress of Babylon, 48—The Coptic
Churches, 53.
CHAPTER III
_The Faubourgs_ 59-90
The Caliphs’ Governors, 59—Helwan, 61—Treatment of
Christians, 61—Monasticism, 62—Conservatism of the
Copts, 64—The ‘Abbasid Faubourg el-‘Askar, 65—‘Abbasid
Governors, Ibn-Memdud, 66—‘Abdallah ibn Tahir, 67—The
Caliph Mamun in Egypt, 68—Persecutions of Muslims and
Copts, 69—The Turkish Governors, 70—Their encouragement
of Art, 71—Ahmad ibn Tulun, 72—The new Faubourg el-
Katai‘, 75—The Aqueduct, 77—Mosque of Ibn-Tulun,
78—Sources of Saracen Architecture, 85—Ibn-Tulun’s
Wars, 86—Khumaraweyh’s Palaces, 87—Egypt recovered by
the Caliphs, 89—The Castle of the Ram, 90.
CHAPTER IV
_Misr_ 91-112
Misr-Fustat the Commercial Capital, 91—The Madara’y
Ministers, 92—The Ikhshid, 93—Mas‘udy in Egypt, 95—The
Island of Roda, 96—Divines at Misr, 97—Poets,
98—Kafur’s Court, 100—Mohammedan Revels, 102—Kafur’s
Government, 103—Misr in the 10th and 11th Centuries,
104—Nasir-i-Khusrau’s Description, 107—The Burning of
Misr, 110—Partial Recovery, Ibn-Sa‘id’s Description,
111.
CHAPTER V
_Cairo_ 113-163
The Shi‘a Revolution, 113—The Fatimid Caliphate,
116—el-Mo‘izz, 116—Conquest of Egypt, 117—Foundation of
el-Kahira, Cairo, 118—Effects of the Revolution,
119—The Copts under the Fatimids, 120—el-‘Aziz, 121—The
Azhar University Mosque, 123—The Palace-city, 125—The
Great Palace, 127—The Gates of Cairo, 129—Bab-Zuweyla,
129—William of Tyre’s description of the Fatimid Court,
130—The Port of Maks and the Fleet, 132—Wealth and Art
and Luxury of the Fatimids, 133—Mosque of el-Hakim,
137—The Caliph Hakim, 139—The Hall of Science,
142—Apotheosis of Hakim, 142—Military Tyranny and Loss
of Provinces, 144—Cairo in 1047—Cutting the Dam,
145—el-Yazury, 146—Spoliation by the Turks, 147—The
Seven Years’ Famine, 148—Bedr el-Gemaly, 149—The Second
Wall and Gates of Cairo, 150—Armenian Ministers,
154—The Rule of Vezirs, 157—Murders and Military
Despotism, 158—Ibn-Ruzzik, 159—Fatimid Architecture,
159.
CHAPTER VI
_Saladin’s Castle_ 164-192
Causes of the Invasion of Egypt, 164—Turks and
Crusaders, 167—Shawar and Dirgham, 168—Amalric and
Shirkuh in Egypt, 169—Saladin Vezir, deposition of the
Fatimid Caliph, 170—Saladin’s Campaigns, 172—His Work
at Cairo, 173—The New Walls, 174—The Citadel, 175—The
Dike of Giza, 180—Risings at Cairo, 181—The Head of
Hoseyn, 182—Saladin establishes Medresas or Orthodox
Colleges, 183—Ibn-Gubeyr’s Account, 184—The Hospitals,
186—Characteristics of Mosques and Medresas,
187—Results of the Restoration of Orthodoxy and
encouragement of Learning, 190.
CHAPTER VII
_The Dome Builders_ 193-254
Saphadin el-‘Adil, 193—Great Famine, 194—Invasion of
Crusaders, 195—Frederick II and Kamil, 196—The Mamluk
System, 197—Queen Sheger-ed-durr and the Bahry Mamluks,
198—Crusade of Louis IX, 201—(i) The Turkish Mamluks,
202—Their Wars against Mongols, 203, and Franks,
205—Revival of ‘Abbasid Caliphate, 206—Beybars, 206—The
Mamluk Court, 209—Turbulence of Emirs, 210—The House of
Kalaun, 211—En-Nasir, 212—Toleration of Christians,
216—Popular Fanaticism, 217—Incendiaries, 218—Nasir and
Abu-l-Fida, 220—Artistic Production, 220—Mosques,
223—Emirs’ Mosques, 224—Early Mamluk Style of
Architecture, 227—Sultan Hasan, 228—His Great Mosque,
231—(ii) The Circassian Mamluks, 235—Corruption,
236—Wars, 237—Cultivated Tastes, 238—Architecture,
238—Kait-Bey, 241—His Buildings, 245—Mosque _intra
muros_, 246—Wekala, 249—Mosques of Emirs and of Kady
Ibn-Muzhir, 250—The Modified Medresa, 250—Buildings of
el-Ghury, 253—Ottoman Conquest, 254.
CHAPTER VIII
_The City of the Arabian Nights_ 257-286
Expansion of Cairo, 257—Rise of Bulak, 258—Suburban
Mosques, 259—The Approach from Bulak, 260—The Thousand
and One Nights redacted in Cairo, 261—The Transit Trade
of Egypt, 263—Merchants’ Inns, 265—The Khan el-Khalily,
266—The Khan of Mesrur, 269—The Wekala Kusun and the
Flower Market, 270—Streets and Quarters, 271—The Art of
Silver Inlay, 272—Cairo Metal Work, 277—Venice,
279—Wood-carving, 281—Meshrebiya turning,
284—Characteristics of Saracenic Art, 285—Men of
Letters in the Mamluk Period, 286.
CHAPTER IX
_Beys and Pashas_ 287-314
Mamluk Emirs (Beys) still in power, 287—Pasha helpless,
288—Street Fights, 289—‘Othman Bey, 289—Rudwan el-
Gelfy, 290—The Sharaiby family, 292—Libraries,
295—State of Learning, 296—Fanaticism and Superstition,
297—Mosques of the Ottoman Period, 298—‘Aly Bey,
298—‘Abd-er-Rahman Kiahya, 298—Mohammad Bey Abu-dh-
Dhahab, 301—Mohammad ‘Aly, 302—Confiscation of Wakf
Trusts, 302—The Commission for the Preservation of the
Monuments of Arab Art, 303—Report to Lord Cromer,
303—Preservation, 305—Restoration, 309—Lord Cromer’s
Action, 313—Grants from the Public Debt Commissioners
and the Egyptian Government, 313.
_Rulers and Monuments of Cairo_ 317-322
_Table for converting Hijra Years into Anni Domini_ 323-327
_Index_ 329-340
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
_Lake of the Elephant: Birkat-el-Fil._
_O. B. Carter_ (c. 1830) _Frontispiece_
_Court of a Private House._
_J. A. Symington_ (1902) 15
_The Citadel._
_J. A. Symington_ 29
_Court of the Mosque of ‘Amr._
_J. A. Symington_ 45
_Gate of Kasr-esh-Shema‘ (Babylon)._
_O. B. Carter_ 51
_Tower of the Mosque of Ibn-Tulun._
_O. B. Carter_ 73
_Within the Mosque of Ibn-Tulun._
_J. A. Symington_ 81
_Detail of Ornament in Mosque of Ibn-Tulun._
_J. A. Symington_ 84
_Street in Old Misr._
_J. A. Symington_ 105
_Ruined Mosque of el-Hakim._
_J. A. Symington_ 135
_Gate of Succour: Bab-en-Nasr._
_O. B. Carter_ 151
_Minarets over Gate of Zuweyla._
_O. B. Carter_ 155
_Mosque of el-Guyushy._
_O. B. Carter_ 161
_Plan of Cairo before_ 1200.
_After Ravaisse, etc._ 165
_Castle of the Ram: Kal‘at-el-Kebsh._
_O. B. Carter_ 177
_Plan of Medresa._
_After Murray_ 190
_Island of er-Roda._
_Robert Hay_ (c. 1830) 199
_“Joseph’s Hall”: Palace of en-Nasir in Citadel, with
his Mosque in background._
_Robert Hay_ 213
_Aqueduct and House of the Seven Watermills._
_Robert Hay_ 221
_Mosque of Sultan Hasan._
_O. B. Carter_ 225
_Gateway of Sultan Hasan’s Mosque._
_O. B. Carter_ 229
_Tomb-Mosque of Barkuk and Farag._
_J. A. Symington_ 233
_Eastern Cemetery: so-called “Tombs of the Caliphs.”_
_J. A. Symington_ 239
_Mosque of Kait-Bey._
_J. A. Symington_ 243
_Tomb-Mosques._
_J. A. Symington_ 247
_Tombs of the Mamluks._
_J. A. Symington_ 251
_Sketch-plan showing growth of Cairo._
_After E. W. Lane_ (1835) 256
_Slave Market._
_O. B. Carter (figures by H. Warren)_ 267
_In the Darb-el-Ahmar._
_J. A. Symington_ 275
_Street near Bab-el-Khark._
_O. B. Carter_ 293
_A Muslim Graveyard._
_J. A. Symington_ 315
_Map of Cairo_ _At end_
The Story of Cairo
* * * * *
CHAPTER I
_The Two Cities_
THERE are two Cairos, distinct in character, though but slenderly
divided in site. There is a European Cairo, and there is an Egyptian
Cairo. The last was once El-Káhira, “the Victorious,” founded under the
auspices of the planet Mars, but it is now so little conquering, indeed
has become so subdued, that one hears it spoken of as “the native
quarters,” or even in Indian fashion as “the bazars.” In truth European
Cairo knows little of its mediæval sister. Thousands of tourists,
mounted on thousands of donkeys, do indeed explore “the native quarters”
every winter, but these do not belong to European Cairo; birds of
passage they are, not inhabitants. The true resident, who has his cool
shaded house and breezy balcony in the Isma‘ilíya quarter, surrounded by
hundreds of similar comfortable villas, does not by any chance ride
donkeys, and is only dragged to “the bazars” rarely and with obvious
reluctance by the importunity of some enthusiastic visitor. But even in
European Cairo there are signs that another Cairo, an Oriental, Muslim
Cairo, exists not far away. Let the English colony keep never so closely
to itself and ignore “the native quarters,” except as objects for just
government and wise reforms, it cannot walk abroad, or even open its
ears in its own chambers, without becoming conscious of the true
Oriental world in which it lives but of which it is not. Go to the Post
Office, a few minutes’ walk from most of the hotels, and you are at once
in a medley of East and West.
A German nursemaid, accompanied by the little daughter of the family, is
asking for letters at the _arrivée_ window, and an old sheykh in
_kaftán_ and turban is negotiating a money-order or a registered letter
at the next bureau. Over the way a row of public letter-writers sit at
their tables on the sideway, gravely imperturbable, awaiting illiterate
correspondents. In the street, omnibuses and tram-cars rumble by,
blowing strident horns; but the passengers who sit on the seats beneath
the awning are not Europeans—they are Egyptians, efendis, clerks,
shopkeepers, sheykhs, often simple fellahín come to town on business and
driving in from Bulák or Kasr-en-Nil. On the footpaths—always uneven and
often muddy, in curious contrast to the roads, which are kept clean by
circular brushes and little girl scavengers—the European element, Greek,
German, Italian, chiefly, is intimately blended with the Oriental:
Sudány women closely veiled with the white _burko‘_, which sets off
their swarthy brows and black eyes to advantage; Egyptian girls in blue
gowns and black veils hanging loose and allowing the well-formed neck
and line of cheek and chin to be seen, whilst concealing the only part a
woman scrupulously hides in the East, her mouth; horrible blear-eyed old
harridans, veiled with immaculate precision, squatting in rows against
the house-fronts; Bedawis striding along in the roadway with the striped
_kufíya_ wound round their heads; strings of camels tied together, laden
with _bersím_, the rich fodder of Egypt, and driven by the smallest of
urchins; petty Government clerks, or efendis, clad in _stambúly_ and
_tarbúsh_, hunched up on donkey-back; all classes and ages and sexes
mingled together in a jostling, perspiring, but good-tempered crowd; and
everywhere the pungent pervasive odour of the East.
Even in the European quarters you still meet the veritable Eastern
sights and sounds. As you look out of your hotel window you will see a
native musician sauntering by, twanging the lute of the country; then a
sound like the tinkling of baby cymbals informs you that the _sherbétly_
is going his round, with his huge glass-jar slung at his side, from
which he dispenses (to the unwary) sweet sticky drinks of liquorice
juice or orange syrup in the brass saucers which he clinks unceasingly
in his hand. Late at night sounds of Eastern life invade your pillow:
the “rumble of a distant drum” tells you that a wedding party is
perambulating the streets, and if you have the curiosity to sally forth
you will be rewarded by one of the characteristic sights of Cairo, in
which old and new are oddly blended. Probably a circumcision festival is
combined with the wedding to save expense; and the procession will be
headed by the barber’s sign, a wooden frame raised aloft, followed by
two or three gorgeously caparisoned camels—regular stage-properties
hired out for such occasions—carrying drummers, and leading the way for
a series of carriages crammed with little boys, each holding a neat
white handkerchief to his mouth, to keep out the devil and the evil eye.
Then comes a closed carriage covered all over with a big cashmere shawl,
held down firmly at the sides by brothers and other relations of the
imprisoned bride; then more carriages and a general crowd of
sympathizers. More rarely the bride is borne in a cashmere-covered
litter swung between two camels, fore and aft; the hind camel must tuck
his head under the litter, and is probably quite as uncomfortable as the
bride, who runs a fair chance of sea-sickness in her rolling palankin.
In the old days the bride walked through the streets under a canopy
carried by her friends, but this is now quite out of fashion, and
European carriages are rapidly ousting even the camel-litters. But the
cashmere shawl and the veil will not soon be abandoned. The Egyptian
woman is, at least in public, generally modest. She detects a stranger’s
glance with magical rapidity, even when to all appearance looking the
other way, and forthwith the veil is pulled closer over her mouth and
nose. When she meets you face to face, she does not drop her big eyes in
the absurd fashion of Western modesty; she slowly turns them away from
you: it is annihilating.
As soon as you have turned your back on the European suburb and the
hotel region, and escaped from the glass shop fronts and Greek dealers
of the Musky, the real Eastern city begins to dominate you. It is quite
easy to lose oneself in the quaint old streets of Muslim Cairo when only
an occasional passer-by reminds one that Europe is at the gates. A large
part of Cairo is very little spoilt: it is still in a great degree the
city of the Arabian Nights.
In that stall round the corner who knows but that the immortal Barber is
recounting the adventures of his luckless brothers to the impatient
lover on the shaving stool? At this very moment the Three Royal
Mendicants may be entertaining the fair Portress and her delightful
sisters with the story of their calamities, and if you wait till night
you may even see the “good” Harún er-Rashíd himself—though it is true he
lived at Baghdád—coming on his stealthy midnight rambles with prudent
Ga‘far at his heels and black Mesrúr to clear the way. A few streets
away from the European quarters it is easy to dream that we are acting a
part in the moving histories of the Thousand and One Nights, which do in
fact describe Cairo and its people as they were in the Middle Ages, and
as they are in a great measure still. In its very dilapidation the city
assists the illusion. The typical Eastern houses falling to ruins, which
no one thinks of repairing, are the natural homes of ‘Efríts and
mischievous Ginn, who keep away god-fearing tenants. But if in its
ruined houses, far more in what remains of its glorious monuments does
Cairo transport us to the golden age of Arabian art and culture. Among
its mosques and colleges and the scanty remnants of its palaces are the
purest examples of Saracenic architecture that can be seen in all the
once wide empire of Islam. Damascus and Ispahan, Agra and Delhi, Cordova
and Granada, Brusa and Constantinople, possess elements of beauty and
features of style which Cairo has not, and they enlarge and complete our
understanding of Arab art; but to view that art in its purity,
uncorrupted by the mechanical detail of the Alhambra, unspoilt by the
over-elaboration of Delhi, we must study the mosques and tombs of Cairo.
The blessed conservatism of the East has happily maintained much of the
old city in its beautiful ruinous unprogressive disorder. There are of
course new houses and rebuilt fronts and even glass window-sashes; the
exquisite _meshrebíyas_ with their intricate turned lattice work are
nearly all gone to make way for Italian _persiennes_, and the stone
benches in front of the shops have disappeared in deference to the
modern exigencies of carriages. But the general aspect of the streets
has not seriously altered in recent years, and the people who press
through the crowded lanes, or sit in their little cells of shops at the
receipt of custom, are unchanged. They dress as their ancestors dressed
ages ago; their ideas and education are much what they always were,
though the new schools are gradually infusing more modern notions; they
are still as calm and easy-going and procrastinating as ever. The only
conspicuous change is the dethronement of the time-honoured
_shibúk_,—the long pipe of meditation and stately leisure and “asphodel
and moly” and all that is implied in the ineffable dreamland of
_keyf_,—in favour of the restless undignified cigarette; but _nargílas_
and cocoa-nut pipes for hashísh are still in full play among the lower
classes. The tradespeople are the conservative element in Egypt, as
everywhere else. The upper classes are becoming every year less Oriental
in outward appearance and habits. They dance with “infidel” ladies, wear
Frank clothes, and delight in the little French pieces played in the
Ezbekíya garden. Even their national coffee cups are made in Europe, and
save for the red tarbúsh, and certain mental and moral idiosyncracies
difficult to eliminate and unnecessary to describe, the Egyptian
gentleman might almost pass muster in a Parisian crowd. It is the
tradesman who recalls the past, keeps up the old traditions, and walks
in the old paths. The course of the world runs slowly in the working
East, and the Cairene shopkeeper has placidly stood still whilst the
Western world joined in the everlasting “move on” of modern
civilization.
“We shall find this stand-still mortal in one of the main thoroughfares
of the city. Leaving the European quarter behind, and taking little note
of the Greek and Italian shops in the renovated Musky, we turn off to
the right into the Ghuríya—one of those larger but still narrow streets
which are distinguished with the name of _shari‘_ or thoroughfare. Such
a street is lined on either side with little box-like shops, which form
an unbroken boundary on either hand, except where a mosque door, or a
public fountain, or the entrance to another street interrupts for a
brief space the row of stores. None of the private doors or windows we
are accustomed to in Europe breaks the line of shops. For a considerable
distance all the traders deal in the same commodity—be it sugar-plums or
slippers. The system has its advantages, for if one dealer be too dear,
the next may be cheap; and the competition of many contiguous salesmen
brings about a salutary reduction in prices. On the other hand, it must
be allowed that it is fatiguing to have to order your coat in half-a-
dozen different places—to buy the cloth in one direction, the buttons in
another, the braid in a third, the lining in a fourth, the thread in a
fifth, and then to have to go to quite another place to find a tailor to
cut it out and sew it together. And as each dealer has to be bargained
with, and generally smoked with, if not coffeed with, if you get your
coat ordered in a single morning you may count yourself expeditious.
“In one of these little cupboards that do duty for shops, we may or may
not find the typical tradesman we are seeking. It may chance he has gone
to say his prayers, or to see a friend, or perhaps he did not feel
inclined for business to-day; in which case the folding shutters of his
shop will be closed, and as he does not live anywhere near, and as, if
he did, there is no bell, no private door, and no assistant, we may wait
there for ever, so far as he is concerned, and get no answer to our
inquiries. His neighbour next door, however, will obligingly inform us
that the excellent man whom we are seeking has gone to the mosque, and
we accordingly betake ourselves to our informer and make his
acquaintance instead.
“Our new friend is sitting in a recess some five feet square, and rather
more than six feet high, raised a foot or two from the ground; and
within this narrow compass he has collected all the wares he thinks he
is likely to sell, and has also reserved room for himself and his
customers to sit down and smoke cigarettes while they bargain. Of course
his stock must be very limited, but then all his neighbours are ready to
help him; and if you cannot find what you want within the compass of his
four walls, he will leave you with a cigarette and a cup of coffee, or
perhaps Persian tea in a tumbler, while he goes to find the
_desideratum_ among the wares of his colleagues round about.
“Meanwhile, you drink your scalding aromatic coffee and watch the throng
that passes by: the ungainly camels, laden with brushwood or green
fodder, which seem to threaten to sweep everything and everybody out of
the street;—the respectable towns-people, mounted on grey or brown
asses, ambling along contentedly, save when an unusually severe blow
from the inhuman donkey-boy running behind makes their beasts swerve
incontinently to the right or left, as though they had a hinge in their
middle;—the grandees in their two-horse carriages, preceded by
breathless runners, who clear the way for their masters with shrill
shouts—“Shemálak, ya weled!” (“To thy left, O boy!”) “Yemínik, ya Sitt!”
(“To thy right, O lady!”) “Iftah ‘eynak, ya Am!” (“Open thine eye, O
uncle!”) and the like;—the women with trays of eatables on their heads,
the water-carrier with goat-skin under arm, and the vast multitude of
blue-robed men and women who have something or other to do, which takes
them indeed along the street, but does not take them very hurriedly. In
spite of the apparent rush and crush, the crowd moves slowly, like
everything else in the East.
“Our friend returns with the desired article; we approve it, guardedly,
and with cautious tentative aspect demand, ‘How much?’ The answer is
always at least twice the fair price. We reply, first by exclaiming, ‘I
seek refuge with God’ (from exorbitance), and then by offering about
half the fair price. The dealer shakes his head, looks disappointed with
us, shows he expected better sense in people of our appearance, puts
aside his goods, and sits down to another cigarette. After a second
ineffectual bid, we summon our donkey and prepare to mount. At this
moment the shopman relents, and reduces his price; but we are obdurate,
and begin riding away. He pursues us, agrees almost to our terms; we
return, pay, receive our purchase, commend him to the protection of God,
and wend our way on.
“But if, instead of going on, we accompany our late antagonist in the
bargain to his own home, we shall see what a middle-class Cairene house
is like. Indeed, a middle-class dwelling in Cairo may sometimes chance
to be a palace, for the modern Pasha despises the noble mansions that
were the pride and delight of better men than he in the good old days of
the Mamlúks, and prefers to live in shadeless ‘Route No. 29,’ or
thereabouts, in the modern bricklayer’s paradise known as the Isma‘ilíya
quarter; and hence the tradesman may sometimes occupy the house where
some great Bey of former times held his state, and marshalled his
retainers, when he prepared to strike a blow for the precarious throne
that was always at the command of the strongest battalions. But all
Cairene houses of the old style are very much alike: they differ only in
size and in the richness or poverty of the decoration; and if our
merchant’s home is better than most of its neighbours, we have but to
subtract a few of the statelier rooms, and reduce the scale of the
others, to obtain a fair idea of the houses on either hand and round
about.
“The street we now enter is quite different from that we have left. We
have been doing our shopping in the busy Cheapside of Cairo, and in full
view of the lofty façade of the mosque of the Mamlúk Sultan El-Muáyyad.
Its two minarets stand upon a fine old gate called Bab Zawíla (or
commonly Zuweyla), which people now-a-days generally prefer to call the
Bab el-Mutawélly, because it is believed to be a favourite resort of the
mysterious Kutb el-Mutawélly, or pope (for the time being) of all the
saints. This very holy personage is gifted with powers of invisibility
and of instantaneous change of place: he flies unseen from the top of
the Kaaba at Mekka to the Bab Zuweyla, and there reposes in a niche
behind the wooden door. True believers tell their beads as they pass
this niche, and the curious peep in to see if the saint be there; and if
you have a headache, there is no better cure than to drive a nail into
the door; while a sure remedy for the toothache is to pull out the tooth
and hang it up on the same venerated spot. Perhaps pulling the tooth out
might of itself cure the ache; but the suggestion savours of impiety,
and at any rate it is safer to fix the molar up. The door bristles with
unpleasing votive offerings of this sort, and if they were all
successful the Kutb must be an excellent doctor.
“The street thus barred by the Bab Zuweyla is, for Cairo, a broad one;
and shops, mosques, wekálas (or caravanserais), and fountains form its
boundaries. In complete contrast, the street we are now to enter, as we
turn down a by-lane and then wheel sharply to the left, has no shops,
though there is a little mosque, probably the tomb of a venerated saint,
at the corner. Its broad bands of red and white relieve the deep shadows
of the lane, each side of which is composed of the tall backs of houses,
with nothing to vary the white-washed walls except the closely grated
windows. On either hand still narrower alleys open off, sometimes mere
_culs-de-sac_, but often threading the city for a considerable distance.
In these solitary courts we may still see the _meshrebíyas_ which are
becoming so rare in the more frequented thoroughfares. The best lattices
are reserved for the interior windows of the house, which look on the
inner court or garden; but there are not a few streets in Cairo where
the passenger still stops to admire tier upon tier and row after row of
meshrebíyas which give a singularly picturesque appearance to the
houses.
“The name is derived from the root which means to drink (which occurs in
‘sherbet’), and is applied to lattice windows because the porous water-
bottles are often placed in them to cool. Frequently there is a little
semi-circular niche projecting out of the middle of the lattice for the
reception of a _kulla_ or carafe. The delicately turned nobs and balls,
by which the patterns of the lattice-work are formed, are sufficiently
near together to conceal whatever passes within from the inquisitive
eyes of opposite neighbours, and yet there is enough space between them
to allow free access of air. A meshrebíya is, indeed, a cooling place
for human beings as well as water-jars, and at once a convent-grating
and a spying-place for the women of the harím, who can watch their
Lovelace through the meshes of the windows without being seen in return.
Yet there are convenient little doors that open in the lattice-work if
the inmates choose to be seen even as they see; and the fair ladies of
Cairo are not always above the pardonable vanity of letting a passer-by
discover that they are fair.
“In one of these by-lanes we stop before an arched doorway, and tie our
donkey to the ring beside it. The door is a study in itself. The upper
part is surrounded by arabesque patterns, which form a square decoration
above it, often very tasteful in the case of the older doorways.
Sometimes the wooden door itself has arabesques on it, and the
inscription ‘God is the Creator, the Eternal,’ which is a charm against
sickness and demons and the evil eye, and also serves as a _memento
mori_ to the master of the house whenever he comes home. There is no
bell, for the prophet declared that a bell is the devil’s musical
instrument, and that where a bell is the angels do not resort—and
sometimes there is no knocker, so we batter upon the door with our stick
or fist. It generally takes several knockings to make oneself heard; but
this is not a land where people hurry overmuch—did not our lord
Mohammad, upon whom be peace, say that ‘haste came from the devil’—so we
conform to the ways of the land, and console ourselves with the
antithetic text, ‘God is with the patient.’ At last a fumbling sound is
heard on the other side, the doorkeeper is endeavouring to fit a stick,
with little wire pins arranged upon it in a certain order, into
corresponding holes bored at the end of a deep mortice in the sliding
bolt of the door. These are the key and lock of Cairo. The sliding bolt
runs through a wooden staple on the door into a slot in the jamb. When
it is home, certain movable pins drop down from the staple into holes in
the sliding bolt and prevent its being drawn back. The introduction of
the key with pins corresponding to the holes in the bolt lifts the
movable pins and permits the bolt to be slidden back. Nothing could be
clumsier or more easy to pick. A piece of wax at the end of a stick will
at once reveal the position of the pins, and the rest is simple.
“Within is a passage, which bends sharply after the first yard or two,
and bars any view into the interior from the open door. At the end of
this passage we emerge into an open court, with a well of brackish water
in a shady corner, and perhaps an old sycamore. Here is no sign of life;
the doors are jealously closed, the windows shrouded by those beautiful
screens of net-like woodwork which delight the artist and tempt the
collector. The inner court is almost as silent and deserted as the
guarded windows which overlook the street. We shall see nothing of the
domestic life of the inhabitants; for the women’s apartments are
carefully shut off from the court, into which open only the guest rooms
and other masculine and semi-public apartments. After the bustle of the
street this quiet and ample space is very refreshing, and one feels that
the Egyptian architects have happily realized the requirements of
Eastern life. They make the streets narrow and overshadow them with
projecting meshrebíyas, because the sun beats down too fiercely for the
wide street of European towns to be endurable. But they make the houses
themselves spacious and surround them with courts and gardens, because
without air the heat of the rooms in summer would be intolerable. The
Eastern architect’s art lies in so constructing your house that you
cannot look into your neighbour’s windows, nor he into yours; and the
obvious way of attaining this end is to build the rooms round a high
open court, and to closely veil the windows with lattice blinds, which
admit a subdued light and sufficient air, and permit an outlook without
allowing the passing stranger to see through. The wooden screens and
secluded court are necessary to fulfil the requirements of the
Mohammedan system of separating the sexes.
“The lower rooms, opening directly off the court, are those into which a
man may walk with impunity and no risk of meeting any of the women. Into
one of these lower rooms our host conducts us, with polite entreaty to
do him the honour of making ourselves at home. It is the guest-room, or
_mandara_, and serves as an example of the ordinary dwelling-room of the
better sort. The part of the room where we enter is of a lower level
than the rest, and if it be a really handsome house we shall find this
lower part paved with marble mosaic and cooled by a fountain in the
middle; while opposite the door is a marble slab raised upon arches,
where the water-bottles, coffee-cups, and washing materials are kept.
“We leave our outer shoes on the marble before we step upon the carpeted
part of the room. It is covered with rugs, and furnished by a low divan
round three sides. The end wall is filled by a meshrebíya, which is
furnished within with cushions, while above it some half-dozen windows,
composed of small pieces of coloured glass let into a framework of
stucco, so as to form a floral pattern, admit a half-light. The two
sides, whitewashed where there is neither wood nor tiles, are furnished
with shallow cupboards with doors of complicated geometrical panelling.
Small arched niches on either side of the cupboards, and a shelf above,
are filled with jars and vases, and other ornaments. The ceiling is
formed of planks laid on massive beams and generally painted a dark red,
but in old houses the ceilings are often beautifully decorated. There
are no tables, chairs, or fireplaces, or indeed any of the things a
European understands to be furniture. When a meal is to be eaten, a
little table is brought in; if the weather be cold a brazier of red-hot
charcoal is kindled; instead of chairs the Cairene tucks his legs up
under him on the divan—an excellent method of getting the cramp, for
Europeans.
[Illustration: COURT OF A PRIVATE HOUSE]
“There is often another reception-room, raised above the ground, but
entered by steps from the court, into which it looks through an open
arched front; and frequently a recess in the court, under one of the
upper rooms, is furnished with a divan for hot weather. A door opens out
of the court into the staircase leading to the harím rooms, and here no
man but the master of the house may penetrate. ‘_Harím_’ means what is
‘prohibited’ to other men, and what is ‘sacred’ to the master himself.
The harím rooms are the domestic part of the house. When a man retires
there he is in the bosom of his family, and it would need a very urgent
affair to induce the doorkeeper to summon him down to anyone who called
to see him. Among the harím apartments there is generally a large
sitting-room, like the mandara, called the _ká‘a_, with perhaps a cupola
over it; and in front of the ká‘a is a vestibule, which serves as a
ventilating and cooling place, for a sloping screen over an open space
on the roof of this room is so turned as to conduct the cool north
breezes into the house in hot weather; and here the family often sleep
in summer.
“There are no bedrooms in a Mohammedan house, or rather no rooms
furnished as bedrooms, for there are plenty of separate chambers where
the inmates sleep, but not one of them has any of what we conceive to be
the requisites of bedroom furniture. The only fittings the Cairene asks
for the night consist of a mattress and pillow, and perhaps a blanket in
winter and a mosquito-net in summer, the whole of which he rolls up in
the morning and deposits in some cupboard or side room; whereupon the
bedroom becomes a sitting-room. There is another important department of
the harím—the bathroom—not a mere room with a fixed bath in it, but a
suite of complicated heated stone apartments, exactly resembling the
public Turkish baths. It is only a large house that boasts this luxury,
however, and most people go out to bathe, if they care to bathe at all.
“The inhabitants of a house, such as that described, lead a dreary
monotonous life; fortunately, however, they are not often conscious of
its emptiness. The master rises very early, for the Muslim must say the
daybreak prayers. A pipe and a cup of coffee is often all he takes
before his light mid-day meal, and he generally reserves his appetite
for the chief repast of the day—the supper or dinner—which he eats soon
after sunset. If he is in business he spends the day in more or less
irregular attendance at his shop, smokes almost incessantly either the
new-fangled Turkish cigarette, or the traditional _shibúk_, with its
handsome amber mouthpiece, its long cherry-wood stem, and red-clay bowl
filled with mild Gébely or Latakía tobacco. If he has no special
occupation, he amuses himself with calling on his friends, or indulges
in long dreamy hours in the warm atmosphere of the public bath, where
the vapour of the hot-water tanks, and the dislocation of each
particular joint in the shampooing, and the subsequent interval of
cooling and smoking and coffee, are all exceedingly delightful in a hot
climate. When he goes out, a man of any position or wealth never
condescends to walk; as a rule he rides a donkey, sometimes a horse; but
the donkey is far the more convenient in crowded streets. Indeed, an
Egyptian ass of the best breed is a fine animal, and fetches sometimes
as much as a hundred guineas; his paces are both fast and easy, and it
is not difficult to write a letter on the pummel of one of these ambling
mounts.
“While their lord is paying his calls or attending to his shop, the
women of his household make shift to pass the time as best they may. In
spite of popular ideas on the subject, Mohammedans seldom have more than
one wife, though they sometimes add to their regular marriage a left-
handed connexion with an Abyssinian or other slave-girl. Efforts,
however, are being made to put down the traffic in slaves, and if the
trade be really suppressed, as it is already in law, the Cairene will
become monogamous. The late Khedive himself set an excellent example in
this, as in most other respects, and the better sort of Muslims are, to
say the least, as moral as ordinary Christians. Facility of divorce is
the real difficulty. Men will not keep several wives, because it costs a
good deal to allow them separate houses or suites of rooms, and
plurality does not conduce to domestic harmony; but they do not hesitate
to divorce a wife when they are tired of her, and take a new one in her
place. It is said the caliph ‘Aly thus married and divorced two hundred
women in his time; and a certain dyer of Baghdád even reached the
astonishing total of nine hundred wives: he died at the good old age of
eight-five, and if he married at fifteen, he would have had a fresh
spouse for every month during seventy years of conjugal felicity.
Divorce was so easy that there seems no great reason why he should not
have married nine thousand. One lady is said to have reduced the
fatiguing ceremony of wedlock to extremely convenient dimensions. The
man said to her _Khitb_, and she replied _Nikh_, and the wedding was
over! Thus did she marry forty husbands, and her son Khárija was sorely
puzzled to identify his father. A governor of Upper Egypt was no mean
disciple of these illustrious leaders; but the habit has become more and
more uncommon.
“There would be much more excuse for the women to demand polyandria than
for the men to ask for polygynaecia; for while the husband can go about
and enjoy himself as he pleases, the women of his family are often hard
pushed to it to find any diversion in their dull lives. Sometimes they
make up a party and engage a whole public bath; and then the screams of
laughter bear witness how the girls of Egypt enjoy a romp. Or else the
mistress goes in state to call upon some friends, mounted upon the high
ass, enveloped in a balloon of black silk, her face concealed, all but
the eyes, by a white veil, and attended by a trusty manservant. These
visits to other haríms are the chief delights of the ladies of Cairo:
unlimited gossip, sweetmeats, inspection of toilettes, perhaps some
singers or dancers to hear and behold—these are their simple joys. They
have no education whatever, and cannot understand higher or more
intellectual pleasures than those their physical senses can appreciate:
to eat, to dress, to chatter, to sleep, to dream away the sultry hours
on a divan, to stimulate their husband’s affections and keep him to
themselves—this is to _live_, in a harím. An Englishwoman asked an
Egyptian lady how she passed her time. ‘I sit on this sofa,’ she
answered, ‘and when I am tired, I cross over and sit on that.’
Embroidery is one of the few occupations of the harím; but no lady
thinks of busying herself with the flower-garden which is often attached
to the house. Indeed, the fair houris we imagine behind the lattice-
windows are very dreary, uninteresting people; they know nothing, and
take but an indifferent interest in anything that goes on; they are just
beautiful—a few of them—and nothing more.
“In truth the Egyptian ladies cannot venture to give themselves airs;
they suffer from the low opinion which all Mohammedans entertain of the
fair sex. The unalterable iniquity of womankind is an incontrovertible
fact among the men of the East; it is part of their religion. Did not
the blessed Prophet say, ‘I stood at the gate of Paradise, and lo! most
of its inhabitants were the poor: and I stood at the gates of Hell, and
lo! most of its inhabitants were women?’ Is it not, moreover, a
physiological fact that woman was made out of a _crooked_ rib of Adam;
which would break if you tried to bend it, and if you left it alone it
would always remain crooked? And is it not related that when the Devil
heard of the creation of woman, he laughed with delight, and said, ‘Thou
art half of my host, and thou art the depositary of my secret, and thou
art my arrow with which I shoot and miss not!’ It is no wonder that a
learned doctor gave advice to his disciple, before he entered upon any
serious undertaking, to consult ten intelligent persons among his
particular friends, or if he have not more than five such friends, let
him consult each of them twice; or if he have not more than one friend,
he should consult him ten times, at ten different visits; if he have not
one to consult, let him return to his wife and consult her, and whatever
she advises him to do, let him do the contrary: so shall he proceed
rightly in his affair and attain his object. Following in the steps of
this pious Father, the Muslims have always treated women as an inferior
order of beings, necessary indeed, and ornamental, but certainly not
entitled to respect or deference. Hence they rarely educate their
daughters; hence they seek in their wives beauty and docility, and treat
them either as pretty toys, to be played with and broken and cast away,
or as useful links in the social economy, good to bear children and
order a household.”[1]
The fatal blot upon Muslim society is this contempt of women, which far
more than counterbalances the good effects of the Mohammedan doctrine of
the equality of all true believers in the sight of God, and the ease of
manner and independence of opinion which result from the sense of
fraternity in the sacred bond of Islám. The picture we have drawn of the
daily life of the Cairene is perhaps too sombre, and we should watch our
tradesman at his revels in order to understand the brighter side of his
life. It is true these excitements are strictly connected with his
religion, but so are the Roman Catholic holidays, and if one must
dissipate it is soothing to the conscience to do it under the auspices
of a saint. The Muslim, however, takes an unnatural delight in pious
celebrations. The wedding guest of Cairo has his own importunate Ancient
Mariner in the _Khatma_ or recital of the entire Korán, from cover to
cover, which a worthy bridegroom frequently provides for the
entertainment of his friends. When the people of Cairo wish to go in for
serious dissipation they visit the graves of their relations, and then,
in houses expressly reserved for cheerful mourners, they listen to the
chanting of the holy book. _Voilà un terrible humeur d’homme!_ _Tristes_
as we are said to be in England in our manner of amusing ourselves, even
an Ibsen audience would stand aghast at the Muslim’s staid diversions.
He certainly makes the most of curiously unpromising materials. The
feast of St Simon and St Jude does not perhaps suggest exhilaration to
an unimaginative Englishman, but your Cairene will intensely enjoy, in
his sedate way, the holidays of his religion. There are plenty of them,
and a Cairo _Mólid_ or “birthday” is not a one-day’s festival, like mere
Christian feasts, but lasts sometimes as long as nine days at a stretch.
Every tourist knows some of them, such as the Kiswa or Holy Carpet
procession, and the passing of the Mahmal with the pilgrim caravan to
Mekka, and they are worth seeing, if they happen to fall within the
“season”—for the Muslim year still retains the unreformed lunar
calendar, which shifts continually and carries the feasts round with it.
There is hardly a week in the year however without some special rite or
spectacle. It may be the _Ashúra_ or 10th of Moharram (the first month),
when people eat cakes in honour of Hoseyn, the martyred son of ‘Aly, and
pay their homage at the mosque of the Hasaneyn, where the martyr’s head
is supposed to rest, and watch the amazing antics of the dervishes.
“Since Hoseyn, in whose honour it is held (combining with his elder
brother, Hasan, to form the ‘Hasaneyn’), is especially the saint of the
heretical Persians, and has given rise, through no merit of his own, to
more schisms in the Mohammedan world than any other person, it is
strange that the Cairenes, who are almost all orthodox Sunnis, should
pay such particular reverence to this feast. But the truth is, they are
glad of any excuse for a holiday; and, after all, was not our lord
Hoseyn the grandson of the Prophet? and is he to be given over wholly to
those heretical dogs of Shi‘a? Whatever the argument, Hoseyn is deeply
revered in Cairo, and his Molid is one of the sights of the capital that
most delight the European visitor. Nothing more picturesque and
fairylike can be imagined than the scenes in the streets and bazars of
Cairo on the great night of the Hasaneyn. The curious thing was that in
the winter after Tell-el-Kebír, when I stood—for riding was
impossible—in the midst of the dense throng in the Musky, and struggled
into the by-street that leads to the Kady’s court and the mosque of the
Hasaneyn, there was not a sign of ill-humour or fanaticism in spite of
the presence of many Europeans. A more good-natured crowd was never
seen. It might have been expected that at least some slight
demonstration would have been made against the Europeans who wandered
about the gaily illuminated streets; but English ladies walked through
the bazars, English officers and tourists mingled in the throng and even
reached the doors of the sacred mosque itself without the slightest
molestation or even remark. Once or twice a woman might have been heard
sarcastically inviting some Christian to ‘bless the Prophet’; but if the
Christian charitably replied, ‘God bless and save him,’ she was
nonplussed; and even if he did not know the proper answer, nothing came
of it. The general good-nature inspired by the festival obliterated all
memories of war and heresy, and it may safely be asserted that no
English mob could have been trusted to behave in so orderly and friendly
a manner in the presence of a detested minority.
“The scene, as I turned into one of the narrow lanes of the great Khan
El-Khalíly, or Turkish bazar, which fronts the mosque of the Hasaneyn,
was like a picture in the Arabian Nights. The long bazar was lighted by
innumerable chandeliers and coloured lamps and candles, and covered by
awnings of rich shawls and stuffs from the shops beneath; while, between
the strips of awning, one could see the sombre outlines of the unlighted
houses above, in striking contrast to the brilliancy and gaiety below.
The shops had quite changed their character. All the wares which were
usually littered about had disappeared; the trays of miscellaneous
daggers and rings and spoons and whatnot, were gone; and each little
shop was turned into a tastefully furnished reception-room. The sides
and top were hung with silks and cashmeres, velvets, brocades, and
embroideries of the greatest beauty and rarity—costly stuffs, which the
most inquisitive purchaser never managed to see on ordinary occasions.
The whole of the sides of the bazar formed one long blaze of gold and
light and colour. And within each shop the owner sat surrounded by a
semicircle of friends, all dressed in their best, very clean and
superbly courteous—for the Cairo tradesman is always a gentleman in
mien, even when he is cheating you most outrageously. The very man with
whom you haggled hotly in the morning will now invite you politely to
sit down with him and smoke; at his side is a little ivory or mother-of-
pearl table, from which he takes a bottle of some sweet drink flavoured
with almonds or roses, and offers it to you with finished grace.
“Seated in the richly-hung recess, you can see the throng pushing by—the
whole population, it seems, of Cairo, in their best array and merriest
temper. All at once the sound of drums and pipes is heard, and a band of
dervishes, chanting benedictions on the Prophet and Hoseyn, pass through
the delighted crowd. On your left is a shop—nay, a throne-room in
miniature—where a story-teller is holding an audience spell-bound as he
relates, with dramatic gestures, some favourite tale. Hard by, a holy
man is revolving his head solemnly and unceasingly, as he repeats the
name of God, or some potent text from the Korán. In another place, a
party of dervishes are performing a _zikr_, or a complete recital of the
Korán is being chanted by swaying devotees. The whole scene is certainly
unreal and fairylike. We can imagine ourselves in the land of the Ginn
or in the City of Brass, but not in Cairo or in the nineteenth century.
“Outside the khan, dense masses of the people are crowding into the
mosque of the Hasaneyn, where specially horrible performances take
place, and where the tour of the shrine of Hoseyn must be made. Near by,
a string of men are entering a booth; we follow, and find tumblers at
work, and a performing pony, and a clown who always imitates the feats
of the gymnasts, always fails grotesquely, and invariably provokes roars
of laughter. In another booth Karakúsh is carrying on his intrigues:
this Egyptian Punch is better manipulated than our own, whom he nearly
resembles; but he is not so choice in his language or behaviour, and we
are glad before long to leave a place where the jokes are rather broad,
and certain saltatory insects unusually active. People of the lower
class however care nothing for these drawbacks; they laugh till their
sides ache at Karakúsh’s sallies, and whatever they see, wherever they
go, whomever they meet, whatsoever their cares and their poverty, on
this blessed night of the Hasaneyn they are perfectly happy. An Egyptian
crowd is very easily amused: the simplest sights and oldest jests
delight it; and it is enough to make a fastidious European regret his
niceness to see how these simple folk enjoy themselves upon so small an
incentive.”[2]
This is what one goes to Cairo to see, the real Eastern life in its
Eastern setting. A scene like this repays one for many dreary calls,
many tepid dances in the region of hotels. You may get hotel life, club
life, polo and tennis, and even golf, excellently at Cairo—the European
Cairo—but these things are common to all “winter resorts.” In the
“bazars,” among the people, you get something that the Isma‘ilíya
quarter cannot give, that no other place can quite rival, something that
painters love and that kindles the imagination. After all, the most
interesting things are always the unfamiliar, and the first plunge into
Egypt is a revelation of fresh ideas, new tones in colour, and the
pungent odours of a strange native life.
It is in the “bazars” that one feels most the shock of contact with the
unfamiliar; but, in a less intimate yet deeply impressive way, to drink
in the full inspiration of the Muslim city one must climb to the
ramparts of the Citadel about sunset and slowly absorb the wonderful
panorama that spreads below and around. Unhappily, to get there one
usually passes along the most terribly defaced street in all Cairo. The
worst destruction took place, one is thankful to remember, before
England took the reins of Egypt. It was Isma‘íl, under French influence,
who made that unspeakable atrocity, the “Boulevard Mohammad ‘Aly,” which
cut through some of the most beautiful quarters, ruined palaces and
gardens, and chopped off half of a noble mosque in order to preserve the
tasteless accuracy of its straight line. Along its side are ranged mean
and uneven offices and tenements, neither Europeanly regular nor
Orientally picturesque. Old wine and new bottles are in close connexion.
A Muslim school elbows a “Grog Shop for Army and Navy.” Under the shadow
of the stately mosque of Sultan Hasan an Arab barber is cutting hair
with a modern clipping machine. A gaily painted harím carriage, guarded
by eunuchs, stands at the door of the mosque: on the panel is a sham
coat-of-arms, that last infirmity of Turkish minds—though for that
matter heraldic bearings were used in Egypt at least seven hundred years
ago. Solemn sheykhs pace slowly along without any sign of surprise at
these strange sights. Overhead the guns boom out a salute, for it is the
Great Festival, the _‘Id el-kebír_, from Saladin’s Citadel; but the
garrison are not stalwart Turkmáns or wild Kurds, in picturesque garb
and with clanking spear and mace, such as the great Soldan led against
Richard of the Lion-heart, but British “tommies” unbecomingly attired in
khaki. The Citadel itself is an arsenal of modern arms and stores, and
English officers rule where once the Mamlúk Beys were massacred. Old and
new are ever clashing in the mediæval fortress, and Private Ortheris
mounts guard over the mosque of a Mamlúk Sultan.
But once we stand on the ramparts the flaring contrasts vanish and the
jarring note is still. All in that wide range beneath the eye is of the
East Eastern. The European touches are too small at such a distance to
mar the purely Oriental tone. Countless domes and minarets, a glimpse of
arched cloisters, a wilderness of flat-roofed houses, yellow and white
and brown, with sloped pents to admit the cool breezes below; a patch of
green here and there, with dark-leaved sycamores, revealing some of the
many gardens of the old city, and beyond, a fringe of palms and a streak
of silver where “the long bright river” rolls sleepily on between its
brown banks; in the distance, against the ridge of the Libyan horizon,
in the carmine glory of the sinking sun, stand the everlasting pyramids,
“like the boundary marks of the mighty waste, the Egyptian land of
shades.” One after the other the tall forms of slender minarets separate
themselves from the bewildering chaos of roofs and domes, and display
their varied grace. Each has its story of victory or exile, of famine
and invasion, of learning and piety, to tell. On the right, northwards,
the fine towers of Muáyyad above the Zuweyla gate recall a hundred deeds
and legends of that famous portal, once the main entrance of the
caliphs’ palace-city. Beyond them rise the minarets of the Nahhasín, a
perfect gallery of Saracen art, and again beyond, the turrets of Hákim’s
great quadrangle. In front in the foreground stands Sultan Hasan, the
largest and most imposing of Mamlúk mosques, and a little to the left
one looks into the vast arcaded square of Ibn-Tulún, with its queer
corkscrew tower overhanging the billowy mounds that reveal where Fustát
lay a thousand years ago. Still more to the left a line of arches shows
where the aqueduct that has brought water to the Citadel for five
centuries stretches to the Nile, and behind we can look down upon the
cluster of ruined domes and minarets of the southern Karáfa—the “Tombs
of the Mamlúks”—and catch a glimpse of the old fortress of Egyptian
Babylon and the mosque of the conqueror ‘Amr. Looking over the Mamlúk
minarets we can see the dim outlines of the cairns of Dahshúr and the
conspicuous form of Sakkára’s step-pyramid, separated from the Saracen
domes by only fifteen miles of space but five millenniums of time; and
as the glow of the sunset fades away the evening clouds gather in the
west and the desert beyond takes up their shades of grey and blue like a
vast mid-African ocean.
[Illustration: THE CITADEL]
Here we realize Cairo for the first time as a city of the Middle Ages,
and more than that, a city with an heritage from the dawn of history. It
is true it has not the exquisite setting of the seven-hilled queen of
the Bosporus; it is not even built about the Nile, which the silts of
centuries have breasted away from the walls it once laved: but as one
looks out from the battlements of the Castle one perceives that there
are other oceans than those of water, and that the capital of Egypt can
have no more fitting frame than the deserts which are her shield and the
pyramids her title-deeds to her inheritance from the remote past. “He
who hath not seen Cairo,” said the Jewish hakím, “hath not seen the
world. Her soil is gold; her Nile is a marvel; her women are as the
bright-eyed houris of Paradise; her houses are palaces, and her air is
soft with an odour above aloes, refreshing the heart: and how should
Cairo be otherwise when she is the Mother of the World?”