A DONKEY RIDE AROUND CAIRO
AFTER it was all arranged, and Nabul and Abdal were actually sure
that they were to be hired, they were so happy that they did not know
whether they were standing on their heads or heels.
"Well, mount your steed, George, and we will be off," said the tall
gentleman, George's uncle, Mr. Benjamin Winthrop. Mr. Winthrop had
already mounted Abdal's donkey, hunching up his knees so that his feet
would not touch the ground, so George clambered up on Teddy Pasha's
high red saddle and the little donkey started off at a lively trot
without waiting for a tap from Nabul's stick. Away went the little
party down the street, the two Egyptian boys running along, each by the
side of his donkey, crying out so as to clear the road ahead, and every
now and again giving the donkeys a gentle stroke with their sticks, not
to make them go faster, but to guide them. They gave them first a tap
on one side and then on the other, as they wanted them to go to the
left or right.
"My! but they bounce you about," called out George to his uncle. It was
the first time he had ever ridden a donkey and he was holding on for
dear life for fear he would be shaken off.
"These Egyptian donkeys have got a funny sort of trot, but it's all
right when you once get used to it," said Uncle Ben. "It's a bit rough
at first, but just sit easy and you will soon swing into the motion."
So George tried to _look_, at least, as if he felt easy. Now they had
left the new part of the city, frequented by the foreigners, behind
them, and were entering the old city where only the natives live.
Here the streets are so narrow that often the roofs of houses nearly
meet overhead, and they are so cluttered up that it is a wonder that
any one can pass along. There were no sidewalks and everybody walked in
the middle of the street. All the people who had any work to do seemed
to be doing it in the middle of the street, instead of in their houses.
The donkeys soon had to slacken their pace, for there was a perfect
tangle of people and donkeys and little carts, and even a two-horse
carriage tried to push through occasionally. This gave George a chance
to breathe easier, and watch the process by which Nabul guided the
Pasha through the crowd.
"Keep to the right, oh, my lord!" Nabul cried out to a richly dressed
man who was crossing the street. "Look to the left of you, oh, my
mother," he yelled to an old woman who was bending under a great
basket of bread. Little Egyptian children usually call old women and
men by some such respectful names as "Mother" or "Father" or "My Lord."
They know well how to address their elders.
Presently there was a great hubbub and everybody made way for two tall,
strong fellows dressed in white, with gaudy red and gold embroidered
vests and red turbans, who came running down the street shouting as
they went. Each carried a long white wand; behind them came a handsome
carriage and pair.
"Make way for the syces and the carriage of the great Pasha," cried
Nabul, and the little donkeys squeezed up against the side of the
house, though even then there was barely room for the carriage to pass.
George wanted to know who syces were. Mustapha, who had accompanied the
party, explained that they were the men servants who ran before the
carriages of great personages to clear the way for them. They can run
all day as fast as horses can trot, and never get weary.
"Don't you ever get tired, either?" asked George of Nabul as he ran
along beside him. The little Egyptian boy only laughed and shook his
head. It was funny, he thought, how all these strangers asked him the
same question when he took them to ride. He thought nothing of running
all day long by the side of his donkey. Egyptian children are a strong,
hardy little race of people and never seem to know what it is to be
tired. They live much in the open air and they sleep on a hard bed, all
of which tends to make them healthy and strong.
"Now how on earth are we going to pass through here?" asked George,
as they turned a corner and saw a long string of camels coming toward
them. Across each camel were slung two great bulging sacks that nearly
touched the houses on each side.
"Hi-yah! Hi-yah! Jannib ya hu!" (which meant, "Keep to the side,
oh, you!") shrieked Nabul and Abdal to the men who had the camels in
charge. But the camels stalked along in the middle of the way, wagging
their long necks and, of course, the donkeys had to stop, for there was
no room to pass.
[Illustration: AT THE BAZAAR.]
Such a clamour as set up! The donkey boys screamed at the camel
drivers, and the camel men yelled back at them; while Mustapha sat on
his donkey calling the camels and their owners all the names he could
think of.
"One would think they were all going to break each other's heads,
wouldn't you, Uncle Ben?" said George, beginning to get uneasy.
"It's only their way of settling a difficulty, they have no idea of
doing harm to any one," answered Mr. Winthrop. And this was true
enough. Egyptians are not as quarrelsome as they seem. Peace was
restored shortly, and the camel drivers prodded their camels with
their sticks until they squeezed up against one side of the street,
leaving just room enough for the donkeys to get past. As it was, the
last camel in the line nipped off George's cap and Nabul had to rescue
it, but the boys only thought this a good joke.
Now they were trotting through a long covered way on either side of
which were tiny shops or booths for the sale of all sorts of wares.
"The Bazaar! the Bazaar where you buy pretty things!" said Nabul,
pointing to the little booths where the merchants sat surrounded by all
sorts of merchandise, clothes to wear, furniture and dishes to use, and
good things to eat.
"So these are what you call stores; they look more like boxes,"
exclaimed George. "Sha'n't we stop now, Uncle Ben, and look at some of
the things?"
"Mustapha says we should go to the great mosque first, and visit the
Bazaars after lunch," called back his uncle.
So on went the little donkeys, climbing up into the very oldest part
of the city, called the Citadel. Here they clattered through an ancient
gateway and soon found themselves in a dark, gloomy street. The little
donkeys went slowly now, for it was a steep climb around and around
with high walls on either side, until at last they came out at the very
top on a sort of terrace, overlooking the city now far below, and there
stood the great Mosque of Mohammed-Ali, with its great central dome and
slender towers or minarets.
"Isn't it fine?" exclaimed George, as he slipped off the Pasha and
stood looking up at the great building.
"Yes, but there are other mosques in Cairo that are much older,"
answered his uncle, "but this is the most interesting of all to see."
"Alabaster, all alabaster," said Nabul, laying his hand on the stone
work near the great entrance.
"Much of the mosque is built of pure white alabaster," explained
Mustapha, and indeed it is a fact that it is built of this fine white
stone. It shows plainly what good taste these old Mohammedan builders
had and what fine workmen they were.
"Can't we go inside?" asked George, starting at once for the door.
"Wait, the _babouches_," cried Nabul and Abdal together, catching
George by the arm and pointing to a big pile of yellow slippers just
inside the door. These slippers, or _babouches_, were in charge of
an old man with a long white beard and a dirty gown, and he had as
assistants two or three boys who squatted beside the pile of footwear.
On seeing the approach of the visitors one of the boys picked out the
smallest pair of _babouches_ he could find and motioned to George to
put them on over his shoes.
"What is that for?" asked George, bewildered.
"No one can enter a Mohammedan mosque with the shoes in which he walks
the street," answered Mustapha. "We Mohammedans leave ours at the door,
but for the strangers there are these slippers, or _babouches_, to be
worn over their shoes so that the sacred carpets of the mosque may not
be defiled."
George thought it very funny as he stuck his feet into the big,
wobbly yellow slippers. Nabul simply shuffled out of his own little
red slippers and left them in charge of the boys at the door, whose
business it was to guard such footgear while their owners were inside.
Meanwhile Abdal stayed behind to guard the donkeys.
They entered a great hall where were many graceful columns, but the
place seemed bare, for there were no furnishings of any kind, except
that the floor was covered with rich rugs, and from the ceiling hung
hundreds of glittering lamps. On one side was a sort of pulpit at the
top of a short flight of stairs. There were a number of people saying
their prayers in the mosque. They would kneel and bow their heads to
the floor and stand up and raise up their arms, all making the motions
together. It made George think of the gymnastic exercises in his school
at home.
"Nabul, I believe I have lost one of those precious old slippers," said
George, suddenly looking down at his feet.
Nabul looked horrified when he saw George with only one slipper on.
"I find," he said, and hurried back the way they had come.
Mustapha turned around to see what was the matter, and waved his arms
wildly and jabbered out a string of words when George told him what had
happened.
"What do you suppose they will do to me, Uncle Ben," laughed George,
"put me in prison? It is not my fault the old slipper came off, it's as
big as a boat anyhow."
"I know what would have happened not so very many years ago," answered
his uncle. "We should probably all have been mobbed, if not killed, for
it is only of recent years that people who are not Mohammedans have
been allowed to come inside the mosques at all. There is nothing which
shows the character and habits of the natives of Cairo better than by
observing how their religion enters into their daily lives."
"It's a regular 'hunt the slipper game,'" said George, as he watched
the little Egyptian looking carefully over the rugs.
Suddenly Nabul came running back with something in his clothes.
"Quick, I put him on," he whispered, slipping the missing _babouche_
on George's foot, at the same time glancing around to see that no one
was looking. No one was looking, and nothing happened, though George
wondered if that would have been the case if he had been found with
only one slipper.
At the door they dropped the _babouches_ for good, and outside found
Abdal playing games with some boys, and the donkeys fast asleep. They
were soon waked up, and our party cantered back to the hotel for lunch,
for as George said, "It's funny how seeing things makes you so hungry."
Mustapha told the boys to be back at two o'clock with their donkeys,
but just now they were cantering off for their own midday meal. Nabul
was in such high spirits that he must stop and buy some hot fried
peppers and a pile of sticky sweet cakes from the man who sat under a
big red umbrella frying big red and green peppers in a pan of olive oil
which stood on a small brazier of charcoal. It is the custom for the
sellers of vegetables and cakes to cook them in the open air in order
to attract trade by the odours and sweet smell of the cooking.
The man began to ladle out some of the hot greasy peppers. "More, more,
'tis not enough for a coin like that," cried the boy, throwing down a
silver piece with a lofty air.
"Oho, thou eatest like a nobleman to-day," said the old man, peering at
the coin. "Since when have the donkey boys become so rich?"
"There is a little American lord at the big hotel, and I am to be his
donkey boy," answered Nabul, as he and Abdal carefully divided the
peppers between them.
"Umph, yes, for a ride through the Bazaar and back again like all these
stranger folk," said the old man as he flung some more peppers in his
pan.
The boys only laughed and went off to eat their lunch in company with
their companions in the great square.
There were a lot of their comrades there and they hailed our little
friends at once, eager to know all about the strangers to whom they had
hired out their donkeys, but Nabul and Abdal kept a discreet silence,
only hinting that the strangers were doubtless princes in their own
country. Donkey boys love to brag, but they are apt to be a jealous lot
and are on their guard against any interference from one another.
One by one the boys got tired of asking questions and dozed off curled
up on the dusty ground; but the young Egyptians did not mind this; nor
the heat, the sun was very hot even though it was in winter; nor the
swarm of flies that buzzed around them. But little Nabul could not
sleep, he sat there thinking of the little American, and wondering how
long he would keep him for his donkey boy.
If he would hire him for a long time what a lot of money he would make,
and what a lot of things he could buy with it. He would buy himself a
new suit to wear on the last day of Ramadan, the Mohammedans' great
religious fête, when everybody who possibly could put on new clothes
of the finest stuffs and the brightest colours. He would buy a new
saddle for Teddy Pasha, for his present one was looking the least bit
shabby, and the scratch that it got from the rough sack on the camel's
back that morning had not improved it in the least. The owner of a
horse or donkey in Egypt will always dress up his steed as elaborately
as his means will allow, and never, never, if it can be helped, will
he drive him with a shabby saddle or bridle. Perhaps, even, there
would be enough to buy new dresses for the little girls and a pair of
silver bracelets for the mother, for all Egyptian women folk are very
fond of jewelry. He would like to buy something, too, for the father,
but before he knew it Nabul was fast asleep dreaming of untold riches,
and only awoke with a jerk when Abdal reached over and shook him into
wakefulness, for the sun told them it was time to be at work again.
George was hanging over the railing of the terrace of the hotel on the
look-out for them as they came up, and waved his hat in the air when
he caught sight of Teddy Pasha again.
This time all started off towards the quarter of the big Bazaars.
Here they found many tourists like themselves mounted on donkeys, for
everybody who comes to Cairo must take a ride through the Bazaars where
there are such curious and beautiful things for sale. All the same,
if one was not a mere tourist, and wanted to learn of the manners and
customs of the people, these curious streets and squares of little
shops were quite the best places in the city to observe how hundreds
and thousands of folk gained their living in most strange ways.
It was funny to see the merchants run out and hail the passers-by, and
beg them to look at their wares. One shopkeeper nearly lifted Uncle
Ben off the donkey, much to George's amusement. Many of them were very
polite, too, and offered visitors coffee when they took their seats on
the stools in front of a shop. The people in the Bazaar were almost
as interesting as the shops themselves. There were the tall Egyptians
of the towns and fellaheen from the country and Bedouin Arabs from
the desert in their long, flowing white cloaks, and big black people
from the Soudan in the far South. Everybody jabbered at once, but all
spoke the same speech. It was curious how, looking so different, they
were all practically of one race and religion. There were also numbers
of Egyptian women all bundled up in black with white veils over their
faces, for neither the Egyptian nor Arab women would ever think of
allowing a strange man to see their faces.
George had a chance to become better acquainted with the boys while
his uncle was making some purchases. He found that not only could they
speak a little English, but some French and a few words of Italian,
too. The little Egyptian donkey boys are remarkably quick to catch up a
foreign language. Nabul told him how he had learned his funny broken
English. He had first picked up words from the tourists who rode on his
donkey, and Mustapha had taught him a good deal, for he spoke English
very well.
Their own speech in Arabic sounds very strange when translated into
our own tongue, as the Egyptians, and indeed all the races which speak
Arabic, are very fond of using big words, and they invariably express
themselves in the most formal and dignified manner. In the evening
Nabul had gone to the English school all one year, and really he had
acquired so much English that he could chatter away as fast as the
little American, if not always so grammatically correct.
So by the time they had ridden through many more quaint streets and the
beautiful Esbekiyeh Gardens and were well on their way back the boys
were good friends.
"Please do tell them now that we will take them for our donkey boys
for all the time we are here, Uncle Ben," George whispered when they
alighted once more at the hotel.
"They do seem to be good obliging little fellows, and as you are the
one to be pleased, for you will do most of the riding, I will tell
Mustapha to arrange it with them," said Mr. Winthrop.
So it was settled that the services of the two boys and their donkeys
should be engaged for a month, with the understanding that they would
be free to do business with other people if at any time they were not
needed.
And weren't the little Egyptians delighted! They cried "Salaam, salaam,
O gracious Effendi!" many times, which was their way of saying "Thank
you, sir!" They strutted through the usual crowd of donkey boys hanging
about, puffed up with pride, and were followed by the envious glances
of the other boys, for it was not often one of their number fell in
with such a piece of good luck.
And how happy they all were in Nabul's home when he rushed in with the
news. The little sisters hugged him and the mother gave him an extra
nice supper, and he went to sleep that night dreaming that he was a
big, fine dragoman and that Teddy Pasha wore a great red turban and
could talk English.
Every morning bright and early Nabul and Abdal with the donkeys, all
looking as spick and span as possible, would be waiting in front of the
hotel for the little "Effendi," as they called George Winthrop, and
when Mr. Winthrop and George were ready away they would ride.
Big, fat Mustapha, jolting up and down on his own donkey, would lead
the way, and showed them each day some of the many strange and curious
things to be seen in and around the city, until finally George felt
quite as much at home in Cairo as did his new found friends.
One day they hurried through lunch to go to see the "Whirling
Dervishes," a queer lot of people, who spin around and around like a
top, as fast as ever they can, until they are so tired they drop on
the floor. They saw the "Howling Dervishes," too, men in gowns of many
colours, with wild faces and long hair, whose blood-curdling howls as
they swayed themselves to and fro almost frightened George, who could
not understand how people could possibly do such queer things as an
act of worship. These are only two of the many sects of the Mohammedan
religion.
One day they crossed over to the island in the river Nile, where
Mustapha knocked at a gate which was opened by a man in a long green
gown, and they found themselves in a garden among trees loaded with
oranges and lemons. Here George crept behind the boys along the top of
a wall to a spot where, so the story runs, the baby Moses was found
asleep in his cradle in the bulrushes by a daughter of the Pharaoh.
The Pharaohs were the ancient kings of Egypt. It was most interesting
for George, who was surprised indeed to find this land of Mohammedanism
had recollections also of his own Christian religion.
Another day they all rode out to a place named Heliopolis, where long
ago there was a great city called the City of the Sun. Now only a tall
granite obelisk stands there, and any little American can see its
"twin," as George called it, if he or she will go to New York City and
look at the big obelisk which stands in Central Park. Once upon a time
several obelisks stood side by side at Heliopolis, but the Khedive, the
ruler of Egypt, some years ago wanted to make a valuable present to the
United States, so he gave them one of these obelisks, the same which
to-day may be seen in New York City.
When they visited the great Museum Uncle Ben and George stood amazed
before the great mummy cases and the petrified mummies themselves
(many of them the old kings of Egypt), which have been buried for
thousands of years, and only recently been brought to light. It is by
preserving all these great finds, dug up from the soil often in the
most unexpected places, that it has been possible to write the history
of Egypt.