STREET SCENES IN CAIRO.
Frank and Fred were up in good season on the morning after their arrival
in Cairo. While waiting for breakfast they read the description of the
city, and familiarized themselves with some of the most important points
of its history, which they afterward wrote down to make sure of
remembering them. Here is what they found:
[Illustration: A CALIPH OF EGYPT ON HIS THRONE.]
"The city known as 'Cairo' (_Ky_-ro) to Europeans is called
Masr-el-Ka_he_rah by the Arabs, the word _Kaherah_ meaning 'victorious.'
It was founded about the end of the tenth century by a Moslem general
who had been sent from Tunis to invade Egypt; he signalled his victory
by building a city not far from Fostat; the latter is called
Masr-el-Ateekah, or Old Cairo, and was formerly the capital; but the new
city grew so fast that it became the capital very soon after it was
founded. It has gone through a good many sieges, and had a prominent
place in the history of the Crusades; the great Moslem conqueror, Yoosef
Salah-ed-Deen (known to us as Saladin), built strong walls around Cairo,
and founded the citadel on the hill at the southern end. The city is
about two miles broad by three in length, and stands on a plain
overlooked by the range of the Mokattam Hills; the new quarter of
Ismaileeyah was recently added, and when that is included, the Cairo of
to-day will be nearly twice the extent of the city of fifty years ago.
Cairo was the city of the Caliphs, or Moslem rulers, down to 1517; from
that time till it was captured by the French, in 1798, it was the chief
city of the Turkish province of Egypt. The French held it three years,
when it was captured by the Turks and English; ten years later Mohammed
Ali became an almost independent ruler of the country, and from his time
to the present Egypt has been ruled by his family, who pay an annual
tribute to Turkey, and are required to do in certain things as they are
ordered by the Sultan. Cairo is still the capital of Egypt; the Viceroy
or Khedive lives there except during the hottest part of summer, when he
goes to Alexandria, where he has a palace.
"The word 'Khedive' comes from the Persian language, and means 'ruler'
or 'prince.' It was adopted by Ismail Pacha, and continued by his
successor; the English word which is nearest in meaning to Khedive is
'Viceroy,' and the head of the Egyptian government is generally called
the Viceroy by Europeans. He should be addressed as 'Your Highness.'
"Some of the most interesting stories of the 'Arabian Nights'
Entertainments' are laid in Cairo, and the reader of those anecdotes
will learn from them a great deal of the manners of the times when they
were written. We are told that the translation by Edward William Lane is
the best. Lane was an Englishman, who was a long time in Cairo. He
learned the language of the people, wore their dress, and lived among
them, and he wrote a book called 'The Modern Egyptians,' which
describes the manners and customs of the inhabitants of Cairo better
than any other work. When we are in doubt concerning anything, we shall
consult 'The Modern Egyptians' for what we want. Lane's translation of
the 'Arabian Nights' occupied several years of his time, and was mostly
made while he lived in Cairo. We have read some of these stories, and
find them very interesting, and often envy Aladdin, with his wonderful
lamp and his magic couch, and would very much like to sit down with
Sinbad the Sailor and listen to the account of his adventures.
[Illustration: PART OF OLD CAIRO.]
"There are so many things in Cairo which we want to see that we will not
try to make out a list in advance. We have engaged a guide to show us
around, and shall trust to him for a day or two. At the end of that time
we hope to know something about the city, and be able to go around
alone."
Every evening, while the boys were in Cairo, was devoted to the journal
of their experiences during the day. They have allowed us to copy from
it, and we can thus find out where they went and what they did. As there
were so many things to describe the labor was divided, and while Frank
was busy over one thing, Fred occupied himself with another. Let us see
what they did:
"It is the custom to ride on donkeys when going about Cairo, as many of
the streets are so narrow that you cannot pass through them with
carriages. We had the best we could secure, and very nice they were
under the saddle, but we soon learned that it required some skill to
ride them. The guide rode ahead, and we noticed that he did not put his
feet in the stirrups as we did; while we were wondering the meaning of
it, Frank's donkey stumbled and fell forward, and Frank went sprawling
in the dust over the animal's head.
"We all laughed (Frank did not laugh quite as loud as the rest, but he
did the best he could), and so did the people in the street where the
accident happened. Frank was up in an instant, and so was the donkey;
and when we were off again the guide said that the donkey had a habit of
stumbling and going down in a heap. If you have your feet in the
stirrups when he goes down, you can't help being thrown over the
animal's head; but if you ride as the guide does, your feet come on the
ground when the donkey falls, and you walk gracefully forward a few
steps till the boy brings your animal up for you to mount again.
"We immediately began learning to ride with our feet free, and an hour's
practice made us all right.
"The donkeys all have names, generally those that have been given to
them by travellers. We have had 'Dan Tucker,' 'Prince of Wales,'
'Chicken Hash,' and 'Pinafore,' and in the lot that stands in front of
the hotel there are 'General Grant,' 'Stanley,' 'New York,' and 'Mince
Pie.' They are black, white, gray, and a few other colors, and sometimes
the boys decorate them with hair-dye and paint so that they look very
funny. The donkey-boys are sharp little fellows, though sometimes they
keep at the business after they have become men. They generally speak a
little English; there are two at our hotel that speak it very well, and
know the city perfectly, so that when we take them along we have very
little need of a guide. They will run all day as fast as the donkey can,
sometimes holding him by the bridle, but generally close behind, ready
to prod or strike him if he does not go fast enough.
"The saddle is a curious sort of thing, as it has a great hump in front
instead of a pommel, and there is not the least support to the back any
more than in an English riding-pad. They explain the peculiarity of the
saddle by saying that the donkey's shoulders are lower than his back,
and the hump keeps you from sliding forward.
"About the best thing we have yet seen in Cairo is the people in the
streets. They are so odd in their dress, and they have so many curious
customs, that our attention is drawn to them all the time. We can't say
how many varieties of peddlers there are, but certainly more than we
ever saw in any other place, not excepting Tokio or Canton, or any of
the cities of India. We will try to describe some of them.
[Illustration: A PEDDLER OF JEWELLERY.]
"Here is an old woman with a crate like a flat basket, which she
carries on her head. It is filled with little articles of jewellery, and
she goes around in the harems and in the baths frequented by women, as
they are her best customers. The guide says her whole stock is not worth
a hundred francs, and if she makes a franc a day at her business she
thinks she is doing well.
"There are women who sell vegetables, fruits, and sweetmeats, which they
carry in the same way as the one we have just described. They are
wrapped from head to foot in long cloaks or outer dresses, and they
generally follow the custom of the country and keep their faces covered.
The oldest of them are not so particular as the others, and we are told
that the custom of wearing the veil is not so universal as it was twenty
or thirty years ago.
[Illustration: A LADY IN STREET DRESS.]
"There is no change of fashion among the women of Egypt. They wear the
same kind of garments from one year to another, and as all are veiled,
except among the very poorest classes, they all look alike. Every lady,
when she goes out, covers her face with the _yashmak_ or veil, so that
only her eyes are visible; her body is wrapped in a black mantle which
reaches the ground, and, though she looks at you as if she knew you, it
is impossible to penetrate her disguise. We are told that when the
European ladies residing here wish to call on each other, and have
nobody to escort them, they put on the native dress, and go along the
streets without the least fear that anybody will know them.
"The wives of the high officials have adopted some of the fashions of
Europe in the way of dress; they wear boots instead of slippers, and
have their dresses cut in the Paris style, and they wear a great deal of
jewellery mounted by Parisian jewellers. Their hats or bonnets are of
European form; but they cling to the veil, and never go out-of-doors
without it, though they often have it so thin that their features can be
seen quite distinctly. We have seen some of them riding in their
carriages, and if they had been friends of ours we think we should have
recognized them through their thin veils.
"How much we wish we could understand the language of the country!
Doctor Bronson says the peddlers on the streets have a curious way of
calling out their wares, quite unlike that of the same class in other
countries. For instance, the water-carrier has a goat-skin on his back
filled with water, and as he goes along he rattles a couple of brass
cups together, and cries out, 'Oh ye thirsty! oh ye thirsty!' A moment
after he repeats the call, and says, 'God will reward me!' And sometimes
he says, 'Blessed is the water of the Nile!' Those who drink the water
he offers usually give him a small piece of money, but if they give
nothing he makes no demand, and moves on repeating his cry.
"The seller of lemons shouts, 'God will make them light, oh lemons!'
meaning that God will lighten the baskets containing the lemons. The
orange peddler says, 'Sweet as honey, oh oranges!' And the seller of
roasted melon-seeds says, 'Comforter of those in distress, oh
melon-seeds!' Behind him comes a man selling flowers of the henna-plant,
and his cry is, 'Odors of Paradise, oh flowers of henna!' The
rose-merchant says, 'The rose is a thorn--it bloomed from the sweat of
the Prophet!' We could make a long list of these street cries, but have
given you enough to show what they are.
[Illustration: A WOMAN CARRYING WATER.]
"Every few steps we meet women carrying jars of water on their heads.
Many of the houses are supplied in this primitive way, and the
employment of carrying water supports a great many people in this
strange city of the East. Of late years pipes have been introduced, and
an aqueduct brings water from the Nile, so that the occupation of the
bearer has been somewhat diminished. But the public fountain still
exists, and the people gather there as they did in the days of the
Bible. Every mosque has a fountain in the centre of its court-yard, not
so much for supplying water for those who wish to carry it away as to
furnish an opportunity for the faithful to wash their hands before
saying their prayers. Some of these fountains are large, and protected
from the sun by a marble canopy. But the public fountains at the street
corners are generally quite exposed to the weather, and many of them are
quite small.
[Illustration: THE FOUNTAIN OF A MOSQUE.]
"We walked slowly along the street during our first excursion, as there
were many sights to attract our attention, and we did not wish to miss
anything. Two or three times we narrowly escaped being run over by
camels or donkeys. The camels move along in a very stately way, and do
not turn out unless ordered to do so by their drivers. They have a
wicked expression in their eyes, and seem quite willing to knock over a
stranger who gets in their way. Sometimes the crowd of people was so
dense that it was not easy to move among them; but everybody was
good-natured, and there was no jostling or rudeness of any kind. There
were a good many beggars sitting in little nooks where they were not in
danger of being run over, and quite often we met blind men who were
feeling their way along by means of long sticks. They called out
something in Arabic, and the people made way for them, so that none of
them were hurt.
[Illustration: A BEGGAR AT THE WAY-SIDE.]
"The portion of the Mooskee where you enter it from the new part of
Cairo contains a good many European shops, so that you do not come at
once into the old-fashioned Orient. But as you go along the scene
changes; the shops of the merchants are open to the streets, and the
shopmen sit there cross-legged, in full view of everybody, so that you
do not have to turn out of the way to see what there is to buy.
"When you think of an Oriental shop you must not picture to yourself an
establishment like those on Broadway or other great streets in New York,
where dozens or hundreds of clerks are employed to wait on customers,
and where the population of a small town might all be attended to at
once. A shop in Cairo or any other city of the East is generally about
six feet square, and often not so large, and it requires only one man to
tend it, for the simple reason that he can reach everything without
moving from his place, and there would be no room for any one else.
Sometimes he has an assistant, but if so, he does nothing himself except
sit still and talk to the customers, while the assistant does all the
work of showing the goods. The front of the shop is open to the street,
and the floor is about as high as an ordinary table, so that when the
goods are spread on the floor the customer can examine them as he stands
outside. We shall see more of these shops when we get to the bazaars.
[Illustration: A MAN CARRYING HIS KEYS.]
"While we were standing near a shop we saw the owner shutting it up,
which he did by folding some wooden doors, very much like the wooden
window-shutters we have at home; then he fastened them with a great
padlock, and started off with the key, which must have weighed a pound
at least. While we wondered at the size of the lock and key, the Doctor
called our attention to a man with a cluster of wooden sticks over his
shoulder, and told us that the sticks were the keys of a house. What
funny things they were! Each of them was nearly if not quite a foot
long, and had a lot of wooden pegs near the end; the pegs fit into
corresponding holes in a wooden bolt, in the same way that the
different wards of a key fit into a lock, but the whole thing is so
simple that it does not require much skill for a burglar to get into a
house. The keys are so large that they must be slung over the shoulder
or fastened to the belt, since they cannot go into an ordinary pocket.
"The Doctor proposed that we should sit down in front of a _café_ and
drink some of the famous coffee of the East. Of course we were glad to
do so, and our guide took us to a place in a side street where he said
they made excellent coffee, and we could have some music along with it.
"We were quite as interested in the music as in the coffee, and thought
of the old adage about killing two birds with one stone. We heard the
music before we reached the place, and what odd music it was!
[Illustration: AN ORIENTAL BAND OF MUSIC.]
"'That is a regular band of music,' said the guide, 'such as the
coffee-houses keep to attract customers, and the rich people hire to
play for them when they give an entertainment. You see there are four
pieces, and I'll explain what they are, beginning from the left.
[Illustration: THE NAY (FLUTE) AND CASE.]
"'The man on the left is playing on a _nay_, or flute, which is a reed
about eighteen inches long, with a mouthpiece at one end. It has six
holes for the fingers, and is blown in a peculiar way, so that a person
not accustomed to the nay would be unable to make any sound with it at
first.'
[Illustration: ANCIENT EGYPTIAN PLAYING THE NAY.]
"Frank asked if there was any other kind of flute. The guide told him
there were several, but this was the most common. The Doctor added that
this form of instrument was very old, as it could be seen pictured on
some of the monuments of ancient Egypt, and appeared to have been used
exactly as it is to-day. Some forms of it were blown into sidewise, as
with the European flute, while others were blown at the end.
"'The man next to the end is playing on a _kemenjah_ or fiddle,' said
the guide. 'The body of it is made of a cocoa-nut-shell, with a piece of
fish-skin or some other thin membrane stretched over it, and the
"bridge" rests on this thin covering. There are only two strings, and
they are vibrated by means of a bow, just like what you see at home,
though the shape is a little different. The long top-piece of the fiddle
is of wood, while the lower end is of iron, and rests on the floor or
ground. The performers are quite skilful, and it would surprise you to
know how much music they can get out of a fiddle with only two strings.
[Illustration: THE TAMBOORA.]
"'The next man has a _tamboora_, or lute, which corresponds to the
guitar, or banjo of Western countries. There are many sizes and shapes
of this instrument, but the most common is the one you are looking at.
"'The most perfect tamboora is about four feet long, and has ten strings
and forty-seven stops. Some of them cost a great deal of money, as they
are made of valuable woods, and inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl.
The form in use by the man in the band is called the _ood_, to
distinguish it from the other varieties of the tamboora. It is about two
feet long, and you observe that the handle bends back very sharply to
accommodate the fingers of the player. A smaller variety of this
instrument is called the _sadz_, and very often forms part of a
soldier's equipment. As you travel about Egypt you will often see a
soldier playing on the sadz, which he accompanies with his voice.
[Illustration: A DARABOOKAH.]
"'The next and last man of the party has a _darabookah_, a sort of drum,
which he holds under his left arm while he plays on it with the fingers
of his right hand. The body of the instrument is of earthen-ware or of
wood, and a skin or membrane is stretched over the large end. It has
changed its shape very little in three thousand years. You see pictures
of the darabookah on the walls of the tombs, and on other ancient
monuments of Egypt, and the manner of playing it is the same as of old.'
"So much, for the band of music, which I am sure will interest you. We
sat down on little chairs, so low that it seemed like sitting on the
floor, and then coffee was brought to us in little brass cups about as
large as an egg shell, but a great deal thicker. Each cup had a holder
of brass filigree work, with a knob or handle at the bottom, and we were
expected to grasp the latter, and not to touch the cup with our hands.
The coffee was in a pot, also of brass, and the whole service--pot,
cups, and holders--was on a tray of the same material. The trays, with
the brightly-polished utensils upon them, looked very pretty, and we
resolved to buy some of these coffee services to send to our friends at
home.
"We can't say much for the coffee, though possibly we may come to like
it in time. It is made much thicker than with us, and if you let it
stand for a minute before drinking, you will find a sediment at the
bottom like fine dust. The servants stand ready to take away the cups as
soon as you are done drinking, and they do it by holding out both hands,
bringing one beneath and the other on top of the cup and holder. We
watched them for some time, and did not once see them take hold of a cup
as one would do in America. While waiting they stood with their hands
crossed at the waist, and we were told that this is the proper attitude
for a servant in Egypt."
[Illustration: COFFEE-POT AND CUPS.]