My next vision is cloistral in comparison. Vision of a quiet courtyard a
mile away (Minet el Bassal), where the cotton was sold on sample. Pieces
of fluff sailed through the sunlight and stuck to my clothes. Their
source was the backs of Arabs, who were running noiselessly about,
carrying packages, and as they passed it seemed to be the proper thing
to stretch out one’s hand and to pull out a tuft of cotton, to twiddle
it, and to set it sailing. I like to think that the merchant to whom it
next stuck bought it, but this is an unbridled fancy. Let us keep to
facts, such as to the small fountain in the middle of the courtyard,
which supported a few aquatic plants, or to the genuine Oriental carpets
which were exposed for sale on the opposite wall. They lent an air of
culture, which was very pleasing. Yet, though here there was no cause
for fear, the place was even more mysterious than the Bourse. What did
it all mean? To the outsider nothing seems more capricious than the
mechanism of business. It runs smoothly when he expects it to creak, and
creaks when he expects it to be still. Considering how these same men
could howl and spit, one would have anticipated more animation over the
samples. Perhaps they sometimes showed it, but my memory is of calm
celibates in dust-coats who stood idling in the sunshine before the
doors of their cells, sipping coffee and exchanging anecdotes of a
somewhat mechanical impropriety. Very good the coffee was, too, and the
very blue sky and the keen air and the bright dresses of some natives
raised for a moment the illusion that this courtyard was actually the
academic East, and that caravans of camels were waiting with their snowy
bales outside. There were other courtyards with ramifications of
passages and offices, where the same mixture of light business and light
refreshments seemed in progress—architectural backwaters such as one
used to come across in the Earl’s Court Exhibition, where commerce and
pleasure met in a slack communion. These I did not care for, but the
main courtyard was really rather jolly, and that British officer (had he
visited it) could certainly have left his comment (whatever it was)
unspoken.
Hence!