A few minutes later the carriage stopped before the steps of the Hotel
Shepheard, which has a sort of veranda provided with chairs and sofas
for the convenience of travellers who desire to enjoy the cool air. We
were received cordially, and given a fine room, very high-ceiled, with
two beds provided with mosquito-nets, and a window looking out upon the
Ezbekiyeh Square.
I did not expect to find Marilhat's painting before me, unchanged, and
merely enlarged to the proportions of reality. The accounts of tourists
who had recently returned from Egypt had made me aware that the
Ezbekiyeh no longer looked the same as formerly, when the waters of the
Nile turned it into a lake in times of flood, and when it still
preserved its true Arab character.
Huge mimosas and sycamores fill up the centre of the square with domes
of foliage so intensely green that it looks almost black. On the left
rises a row of houses, among which are to be seen, side by side with the
newer buildings, old Arab dwellings more or less modernised. A great
number of moucharabiehs had disappeared. There remains a sufficient
number of them, however, to preserve the Oriental character of this side
of the square.
Above the trees on the other side of the square, higher than the line of
the roofs, are seen four or five minarets, the shafts of which, built in
courses alternately blue and red, stand out against the azure sky. On
the right the scarps of Mokattam, of a rosy gray, show their bare sides,
on which no vegetation is apparent. The trees of the square conceal the
newer buildings, and thus my dream was not too much upset.
Being an invalid, I had to be somewhat careful, and required two or
three days of complete rest. If the reader is fond of travel, he will
understand how great was my desire to begin exploring that labyrinth of
picturesque streets in which swarms a vari-coloured crowd, but it was
out of the question for the time being. I thought that Cairo, more
complaisant in this respect than the mountain to the prophet, would come
to me if I could not go to it, and as a matter of fact, Cairo was polite
enough to do so.
While my luckier companions started to visit the city, I settled myself
on the veranda. It was the best place I could have chosen, for even
leaving out the people on the Square, the veranda roof sheltered many
curious characters. There were dragomans, most of them Greeks or Copts,
wearing the fez and a short, braided jacket and full trousers; cavasses
richly costumed in oriental fashion, scimetar on the hip, _kandjar_ in
the belt, and silver-topped cane in the hand; native servants in white
drawers and blue or pink gowns; little negroes, bare-armed and
bare-legged, dressed in short tunics striped with brilliant colours;
dealers selling kuffiyehs, gandouras, and oriental stuffs manufactured
in Lyons, photographic views of Egypt and of Cairo, or pictures of
national types,--to say nothing of the travellers themselves, who,
having come from all parts of the world, certainly deserved to be looked
at.
Opposite the hotel, on the other side of the road, stood in the shade of
the mimosas the carriages placed at the disposal of the invited guests
by the splendid hospitality of the Khedive. An inspector, blind in one
eye, with a turban rolled around his head and wearing a long blue
caftan, called them up and gave the drivers the orders of the
travellers. There also stood the battalion of donkey drivers with their
long-eared steeds. I am told that there are no less than eighty
thousand donkeys in Cairo. That number does not seem to be exaggerated.
There are donkeys at every corner, around every mosque, and in the most
deserted places there suddenly appear from behind a wall a donkey driver
and a donkey that place themselves at your service. These asses are very
pretty, spirited, and bright-tempered; they have not the piteous look
and the air of melancholy resignation of the asses of our own country,
which are ill fed, beaten, and contemned. You feel that they think as
much of themselves as other animals do, and that they are not the whole
day long a butt for stupid jokes. Perhaps they are aware that Homer
compared Ajax to an ass, a comparison which is ridiculous in the West;
and they also remember that one of their ancestors bore Miriam, the
Virgin Mother of Issa, under the sycamore of Matarieh. Their coat varies
from dark-brown to white, through all the shades of dun and gray. Some
have white stars and fetlocks. The handsomest are clipped with ingenious
coquetry so as to make around the legs patterns which make them look as
if they were wearing open-worked stockings. When they are white, the end
of the tail and the mane are dyed with henna. Of course this is only in
the case of thorough-bred animals, of the aristocracy of the asinine
race, and is not indulged in with the common herd.
Their harness consists of a headstall adorned with tresses, tufts of
silk and wool, sometimes coral beads or copper plates, and of a morocco
saddle, usually red, rising up in front to prevent falls, but without
any cantle. The saddle is placed upon a piece of carpet or striped
stuff, and is fastened by a broad girth which passes diagonally under
the animal's tail like a crupper-strap; another girth fastens the
saddle-cloth, and two short stirrups flap against the animal's sides.
The harness is more or less rich according to the means of the donkey
driver and the rank of his customers, but I am speaking merely of asses
which stand for hire. No one in Cairo considers it undignified to ride
an ass,--old men, grown men, dignitaries, townspeople, all use them.
Women ride astride, a fashion which in no wise compromises their
modesty, thanks to the enormous folds of their broad trousers which
almost completely conceal their feet. They often carry before them,
placed upon the saddle-bow, a small, half-nude, child which they steady
with one hand while with the other they hold the bridle. It is usually
women of importance who indulge in this luxury, for the poor fellahin
women have no other means of locomotion than their little feet. These
beauties, as we may suppose them to be, since they are masked more
closely than society ladies at the Opera ball, wear over their garments
a _habbarah_, a sort of black taffeta sack, which fills with air and
swells in the most ungraceful fashion if the animal's pace is quickened.
In the East a rider, whether on horseback or on an ass, is always
accompanied by two or three footmen. One runs on ahead with a wand in
his hand to clear the way, the second holds the animal's bridle, and the
third hangs on by its tail, or at least puts his hand on the crupper.
Sometimes there is a fourth who flits about and stirs up the animal with
a switch. Every minute Decamp's "Turkish Patrol," that startling
painting which made such a sensation in the Exhibition of 1831, passed
before me, amid a cloud of dust, and made me smile; but no one appeared
to notice the comicality of the situation: a stout man dressed in white
with a broad belt around his waist, perched on a little ass and followed
by three or four poor devils, thin and tanned, with hungry mien, who
through excess of zeal and in hope of backshish, seem to carry along the
rider and his steed.
I must be forgiven all this information about the asses and their
drivers, but these occupy so large a space in life at Cairo that they
are entitled to the importance which they really possess.