An Artist in Egypt

THE SPHINX BY MOONLIGHT

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AN
ARTIST
IN
EGYPT

BY
WALTER TYNDALE
R.I.

HODDER & STOUGHTON
NEW YORK & LONDON

PREFACE

I ENDEAVOURED, in a former book on Egypt, to give my first impressions while the glamour of the East had not been dimmed by familiarity; and the kind reception of that, my first literary attempt, has encouraged me to write again after spending some years in the Nile Valley. Though first impressions may have a charm which familiarity lacks, it would be astonishing if a country so full of beauty, and of such varied interests as is Egypt, had caused familiarity to breed contempt. I may safely say that it has not had that result. A lengthened stay has certainly added to my experiences as well as to my stock of drawings, and I trust it has also given me some insight into the character of the people amidst whom I dwelt.

Mediæval Cairo is doubtless year by year the poorer by many picturesque ‘bits’ which have vanished. But Cairo is a large city, and happily many years may elapse before artists will cease to go there for material. What is still untouched by the jerry builder, or has not been allowed to fall into ruin, is probably more beautiful than anything other oriental cities can show. Less change is seen in the smaller towns, and the villages are much the same in aspect as when the Saracen invaders first occupied the valley of the Nile.

Every season adds to the knowledge of Ancient Egypt, and gives us something which for centuries lay hid beneath the desert sands. It was my good fortune to spend some winters at Thebes while some of the most interesting of recent discoveries were made, and through the courtesy of Mr. Weigall, the Chief Inspector of Upper Egypt, I was enabled to dwell and do my work in these congenial surroundings. I have also to thank him for the unique opportunities which our desert journey, from the Nile to the Red Sea, offered; of all my experiences in Egypt, none has given me more pleasure in recalling.

Haslemere, 1912.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER I
CAIRO REVISITED

AFTER a lapse of some years, I returned to Cairo to attempt once again to paint its ancient buildings, as well as the picturesque incidents seen in the shadows they cast or bathed in light against their sunlit walls.

I made an early start on the first morning after my arrival, partly to look for a subject, and more particularly to see whether the pictorial side of the old quarters of the city would still impress me as it did on my first visit. It was a fateful morning, for had what I saw failed to stir up my former enthusiasm, I was resolved to pack up my traps, and try my hand in Upper Egypt.

I hurried along the Mousky as fast as its usual crowd of people would allow, and turned down the Khordagiyeh to see if an old favourite subject of mine had not been ‘improved away.’

Needless to say, it was a brilliant morning, for the occasional grey days of midwinter were still a long way off. Great awnings hung across the street, and on one side the shopmen were lowering blinds or rigging up matting, in anticipation of the sun which would shortly be streaming down on them. Everything still had its summer look, though October was far spent;—and Cairo, let me say, is much more beautiful in hot weather than during the comparatively chill days of winter.

The particular houses I had gone in search of were happily untouched; but had they been restored out of all shape or allowed to fall down for want of repair, I should hardly have had room for a depressing thought.

From the crowd of country folk and the heavily laden camels and donkeys, it was evident that a market was being held in the open space in front of the Beit-el-Kadi. Locomotion was difficult till the Nahasseen or coppersmith street was reached, for here the road widens out at the Muristân. This handsome building, together with the mosques of Kalaûn, en-Nasir, and of Barkûk, formed a magnificent group, massed as they then were in a luminous shade. It was a meeting of old friends, and old friends looking their best. The dark awnings stretched across the road gave this pile of masonry a light and ethereal look, though they were dark in contrast to the azure above, save where the sun tipped the domes and a face of the minarets.

The crowd allowed but little time for contemplation; I had to move with it, and reaching the short street which leads to the Beit-el-Kadi, a converging stream of people carried us along till we arrived at the market square. I picked my way through the heaps of fruit and vegetables which littered the ground, passed behind a group of camels, and worked my way to the steps of the court-house, which gives its name to the market. From this point of vantage I was enabled to make some rough studies of the animated scene before me.

The sun had now risen high enough to flood the larger part of the square in light. Bits of matting, sailcloth, or anything which can cast a shadow, were rigged up to protect the more perishable goods, and the early comers had taken advantage of the shade of the acacia trees at the further end of the market.

The general impression is one of light, colour, noise and movement. The detail is full of human as well as pictorial interest. Various combinations of colour—some beautiful, some inharmonious—leave ample scope to the painter to arrange his scheme. A pile of oranges and lemons, with the black and deep purple dress of the fellaha saleswoman, make a striking note in the foreground; the stacks of pitchers brought down from Balliana, in Upper Egypt, give a variety in buffs and greys, and the blue garments of the buyers are sufficiently faded not to contrast too violently. It is also a great study of types and characters. The noisy Cairene is chaffering with the quieter Shami from far Damascus for some pomegranates which are heaped before him; the Maghraby hawks a bundle of yellow slippers; Jew and Greek are trying to outdo each other in a deal over a spavined horse.

Through the motley crowd passes the brightly garmented lemonade-seller, tinkling his brass cups; his rival, who retails licorice-water, seems more in demand; one, carrying a heavy pitcher with a long brass spout, invites the thirsty ones to partake of the charity offered them in the name of God. ‘Sebeel Alháh yá atchan,’ he drones out at stated periods. He is less often met at markets than at religious festivals, and he is paid by some visitor to the tomb of a saint to distribute the water as a thank-offering.

A young camel about to be slaughtered is being led about and sold piecemeal, intending purchasers chalking on the hide of the beast the joint they wish to secure.

The cheap-jack, with his usual flow of language, tempts the fellaheen to buy his European shoddy; Karakush, the Egyptian Polichinelli, is here, and also the quack doctor.

The effect is now rapidly changing as Bibar’s ancient palace ceases to cast its shadow over the further part of the market, and my vantage-ground becomes untenable as the sun creeps round to the steps of the court-house. I work my way to the archway at the eastern side of the square, and find another picture here well worth going to Cairo to paint, for from this point I get a view of the Muristân and the domes and minarets of its adjacent mosques, now in the full noonday sun. A stately background to the busy scene before me.

The studies I had made of the market, though far from satisfying me, left me too tired to do more than make a few notes and a promise to come here again on a future occasion.

It is a relief, after the glare and noise of a similar subject, to turn down the narrow dark lanes which are found in the residential parts of Old Cairo. The one entered from the archway winds through the Hasaneyn quarter and ends at the eastern entrance of the Khan Khalil.

These lanes where the old houses are still intact are even more characteristic of Cairo than are the busy streets, for something similar to the latter can be seen in most eastern cities. The projecting latticed windows, which relieve the plane surfaces of the backs of the houses, are a distinct feature of this city. Known generally as mushrbiyeh, they were originally small bays in which the water-bottles were placed to cool. The word is derived from the root of the Arabic shirib, to drink, from which we also get our word sherbet.

The bays were gradually enlarged so as to allow two or three people to sit in them and see up and down the street without being seen themselves. What corresponds to a glass pane in Europe is here replaced by a wooden grating. Each joint is turned, and so arranged as to make a pretty pattern. This grating is much closer in the apartments of the hareem, and though it freely admits the air and a sufficiency of light, it effectually screens the inmates from those outside.

From the enlarged bays one or more smaller ones often project in which the earthen bottles are now placed. There are also small windows in the lower panels, through which I have often seen things hauled up in small baskets from the street. Sellers of fruit or sweetstuffs are often met in these lonely lanes, and a stranger might wonder where they expect to find custom. Presently a little grating will open and a face will nearly fill the opening. Should the stranger have been seen through the lattice-work, the face will be partly veiled unless it be that of a child, and after some bargaining with the hawker, a small basket containing a coin will be lowered. The coin having been carefully examined, the purchased article is placed in the basket and they are hauled up to the window. ‘Ma’s salama, ya sitt,’ ‘ya bint,’ or ‘ya Amma,’ according to the degree of the purchaser, is usually the farewell salutation of the hawker. But should the purchase not prove on further examination to be up to expectations, a lively altercation is sure to ensue, and voices from unseen parties behind the grating may also be heard.

It is sad to see how much of this mushrbiyeh is disappearing; it is seldom now repaired and is often replaced by cheap sashes or is roughly boarded up. There are several causes for this: it is expensive, and the owners of the larger houses have mostly gone to live in the modern quarters and have let out their old homes in tenements to the poorer people. Much also has been destroyed by fire. The houses usually project over the lane as each story is reached, so that the upper windows often nearly meet the ones of the opposite houses. It is easily imagined how a fire will spread with so inflammable a material for it to feed on. The cheap imported petroleum lamps, which are replacing the earlier form of lighting, have much to account for. Many of the best examples of mushrbiyeh have been bought up by dealers to be made into screens or re-used in the modern suburbs.

As seen from the lane, the houses have a gloomy appearance; but it should be remembered that the Cairene dwelling was not built to make an outward display,—its beauty is seen from its inner courts or garden. When he views them from the narrow sunless lane, the visitor wonders how people can live in such unhealthy surroundings. Should he be fortunate enough to have the entrée to a house which is still inhabited by a prosperous owner, he will probably come to the conclusion that no more suitable plan could have been adopted in a country where the summer lasts for three-quarters of the year.

I shall attempt to describe a visit to a beautiful dwelling later on; at present let us wander through the Hasaneyn quarter, thankful that the rays of the sun are so carefully excluded.

Reaching the wider thoroughfare, where stands the mosque which gives the district its name, the difference in the temperature is immediately felt. We carefully keep to the shady side of the road till we arrive at the entrance of the Khan Khalil.

This Khan, more commonly called the Turkish Bazaar, is one of the few which every tourist is taken to see; it is in reality a series of bazaars, the most conspicuous being that of the metal workers. Passing through a massive doorway we enter a lane, roofed in overhead with long rafters and matting; the warm light, which filters through this, harmonises the various-coloured silks and stuffs which are piled up in every little shop or hung out to attract a customer. Each shop is little more than a square cupboard, but as carriages do not enter here the owners have been allowed to retain the mastaba, or raised seat, on a level with their floors and projecting two feet or more into the roadway. This was characteristic of every shop in Cairo, until carriages began to replace the litter and the ass as a means of locomotion. The merchant drops his slippers as he enters his place of business, while the customer can sit on the mastaba and keep his slippered feet in the street.

An old acquaintance recognises me and invites us to sit down; he claps his hands, and the boy from the coffee shop runs across to take his orders. When it is decided whether we shall have coffee or green tea, cigarettes are produced and a series of courteous inquiries then follow. I in return ask after his health and that of his children, but am not sufficiently intimate to allude to his wife. ‘Allah be praised, all are well.’ I ask how his business is, and he tells me that it is Allah’s will that things are not what they used to be. ‘Large rival stores now exist in the modern parts of Cairo and are injuring the trade of the Khan Khalil.’ He might have added that prices are more fixed in these new stores and that visitors have not the time to spend hours over a purchase. He asks me when I am coming to sit in his shop, again to paint that of Seleem, his opposite neighbour. He calls out to Seleem and asks him if he has forgotten the ghawaga who painted him and his wares. ‘Ya salaam!’ says Seleem, and crosses over to join in the conversation. When the greetings are over it is time to begin the leave-taking, and with a promise to come again and possibly bring a customer we continue our way.

I am glad to find that both men still retain the kuftân and ample turban, and have not adopted trousers and the ugly red tarbouch, as most of the metal workers have done.

WATER MELON SELLER

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Descending some steps we come to the handsome gateway built by Garkas el-Khalíly in 1400; innumerable lamps, copied from those which used formerly to adorn the mosques, are exposed here for sale; brass finger-bowls, salvers and ewers cover the counters, and tall damascened lamp-stands fill up every available place on the floor.

The original colouring of the gateway seems to have worn itself down to making a quiet and harmonious background to this sparkling mass of metal work.

I am soon recognised by the owner of one of the stalls, from whose shop I had also painted a part of this bazaar, and am again invited to sit down to coffee and a cigarette. As some seven or eight seasons had passed since my last visit to Cairo, and considering the thousands of foreigners who must have passed through these bazaars during that time, it is astonishing that he should have remembered my face. There is, however, no time now to accept of the good man’s hospitality, but ‘In-sháalláh,’ I shall return before many days.

Each turning gives us a fresh scheme of colour and the interest of another handicraft. The carpet bazaar leads out of that of the metal workers. The small cupboard-shaped shop is here replaced by one or two important show-rooms, and here and there a beautiful old Persian rug makes one regret the crude colouring of the aniline-dyed modern ones which are replacing them. Be the colours ever so glaring, the subdued warm light which passes through the awnings makes them part of one harmonious whole.

A mass of red and yellow is what catches our eyes as we look down the slipper market, at a right angle from the carpet bazaar. Festoons of slippers hang from shop to shop, they are piled in stacks on the counters, and large skins, both red and yellow, are being cut up and hammered about as if the supply was not yet equal to the demand.

We have them on our right, and pass through a double row of stalls where we are pestered to buy strings of beads, amber mouthpieces, cut and uncut stones, ‘Nice bangles for your lady,’ besides many other things we are equally not in want of. Here we take our leave of the Khan Khalil, and I also of the imaginary reader whom I have attempted to conduct through it.

I am fortunate enough to find an arabeyeh, the Cairene cab, and can ponder over my morning while returning to the hotel.

Yes, Cairo is good enough for a second visit, and, please God, a good many more. My second impressions were perhaps pleasanter than my first ones, for I had not now that bewildering sense of how I should set to work, and also if it were possible to give anything like a pictorial presentment of these scenes. The physical inconveniences of working in crowded streets and amongst a strange people appalled me; but I did not then realise, as I do now, how much a tactful guide can do to make this work a possibility.

CHAPTER II
RENEWAL OF MY ACQUAINTANCE WITH MOHAMMED BROWN AND SOME REFLECTIONS ON MATRIMONY

NOW the first thing to do was to look up my former servant, Mohammed el-Asmar, now a dragoman known as Mohammed Brown, the surname being the English interpretation of Asmar. I have described him fully in Below the Cataracts, a previous book I have written when Egypt was much newer to me than at present.

I went to that haunt of the dragomans, the pavement outside the terrace of Shepheard’s hotel, late enough to have allowed for the post-prandial nap. I found one or two hanging about on the chance of some tourist who might be taking Cairo on his way home from yet hotter climates.

They had not seen Mohammed lately and did not know to what part of Cairo he had moved; but one of them knew a relation of his and promised that he should be made to know that I was in Cairo.

That same evening Mohammed was awaiting me in the hall of the hotel.

After the first greetings I remarked on what a swell he had become, and asked him why he should have an English covert-coat over his becoming oriental dress, on so hot an evening as it was. Instead of the old red slippers, he wore European tanned-leather boots, and the turban was replaced by the hideous tarbouch. He had forgotten my dislike for this half-and-half get-up, and he told me it was now quite ‘the thing’ amongst the better-class dragomans.

I was glad, however, to find that the seven seasons during which he had been preying on the tourists had not, apart from these changes in his garments, altered him much for the worse.

‘Well, how is the baby?’ I asked him. ‘Oh, he is getting a big boy now.’ ‘And the wife?’ I ventured this time. A rather crestfallen look prepared me that something was wrong. ‘Which wife, sir, do you mean?’ ‘You must be doing uncommonly well if you can afford two wives,’ I said; ‘most of us who have to earn our living in England find one as much as we can manage; besides, Mohammed, you used to agree with me that it was a very foolish thing for any one to have more than one.’ He certainly seemed to agree with me now, for it was evident that trouble began when number two made her appearance.

‘It came about like this,’ he went on. ‘You remember I told you that my first wife, the mother of our Hassan, was very pretty, and that I loved her very much.’ ‘Yes, I remember she was very pretty, for you know I caught sight of her that day my wife and I dined at your house.’ He smiled, but shook his head, as much as to say that he, a Moslem, ought not to have allowed his wife to be seen unveiled. As I, however, was not a Moslem myself, he tried to console himself that he had not transgressed Mohammedan law.

‘A pretty face, sir, she still has, but her tongue gets worse and worse.’

I asked the foolish young man if he expected to improve her tongue by introducing her to a second wife. ‘I have been a great fool,’ was his mournful reply; and after a pause, ‘I think I shall have to divorce her; but I love her very much in spite of her temper.’

‘Well, now, about number two?’ I asked. ‘It came about like this,’ he began again. ‘You must remember Ahmed Abd-er-Rahman, the old dragoman that used to come here.’ ‘I don’t remember him, but no matter.’ ‘Well, I asked his advice about curing a wife’s temper, but got little encouragement from him. The few remedies he suggested, and which I tried, only made matters worse.

‘One day he said to me: “Mohammed, I have always loved you as if you were a son of mine, and as I have still an unmarried daughter, it would add to my happiness as well as to yours if you became my son-in-law. I shall only ask a small dowry of you, whereas if I were to marry her to the one-eyed Mustâpha, he could and would give a much larger one. She is young and beautiful, and has the sweetest disposition; and while I kept you waiting in the hôsh the other day, it was but to give her an opportunity of gazing on you through the mushrbiyeh. You can divorce your Rasheeda and live happily with my Fâtimah.”

‘This sounded very well, and I tried to get the old man to fix the sum I should have to pay as the dowry. He kept telling me of the price one-eyed Mustâpha was prepared to pay; but I wanted to know nothing about Mustâpha, and have since found out that this was all lies. After many days he agreed to content himself with ten pounds, and I paid him half that sum, the other half, as you know, to be paid when the marriage had taken place.

‘I had done well that season, and spent much of my earnings on the wedding; when I left my friends below to go to the hareem, I gave my bride a handsome present as “the price of the uncovering of the face,” and when I threw back the shawl, and saw her for the first time, I nearly fainted.’

It was as much as I could do not to laugh, but the poor fellow seemed so overcome in recalling his bad bargain that I tried to look sympathetic.

‘I thought of divorcing her there and then,’ he went on, ‘but I had not the heart to pronounce those terrible words on the day of the poor creature’s wedding. She was ugly and old—at least thirty—and had as brown a face as I have.’

After a pause he went on. ‘Her father—may Allah blacken his face!—did not lie as regards her temper; but even the best of tempers could not withstand the jeering and scoffing to which Rasheeda used to treat her. My mother used to take her part, and we had more rows between Rasheeda and my mother. When I could stand it no longer, I went with two witnesses to the Kadi’s court and had her written a nashizeh, and she returned to her own people. Fâtimah tried to mother our little Hassan, but she could not console him. He got ill, and I was afraid we might lose him. I then took a room near Saida Zenab, and fetched Rasheeda away from her people, and she and the child are now living there. My life has been more peaceful since then, but the cost of two households makes me a very poor man. I assure you, Mr. Tyndale, that though I did very well last season, I hardly know where to turn for a piastre.’

It would be two months or more before the next season would be in full swing, so we arranged that he would accompany me during that time, and would procure me some one else while he was engaged with the tourists. He promised to be in good time the next morning, and took his departure.

Probably nothing has tended more to separate the East from the West than their differing views as to the relation of the sexes. Such education as there is has until quite recently been entirely confined to the sons of the more well-to-do, and even at present the instances of a girl being taught to read or write are very rare. It therefore follows that as only one parent has had any mental training, the offspring has less mental capacity to inherit than where both parents will have had some form of schooling. The religious instruction which forms so large a part of a Moslem’s training is almost entirely withheld from the girls, which accounts no doubt for the erroneous idea held by Europeans that Mohammedans believe women to have no souls. Religious text-books give pages as to a child’s duty to its father, and they sum up in a couple of lines the duty to the mother. Educated Egyptians will often complain that their wives are no companions to them, but what can they expect when their womenkind are brought up in a manner so distinctly inferior?

Polygamy is less common than is generally supposed, but a man can divorce his wife so easily that he has not the necessity of keeping more than one at a time. It is true that a father will hesitate to give his daughter to a man who has often used the divorce court, and that he will also advise his son to keep to one wife if he possibly can.

A young doctor, who appeared to be happily married, told me of the advice his father gave him previous to the wedding. ‘Don’t be foolish enough, O my son, ever to take a second wife; for if you do, trouble is sure to begin. Should you tire of Zenab, get her another dress; women are all much the same, it is the clothes which make the difference.’ I asked if this plan had succeeded. ‘Yes, only too well,’ said my friend, ‘for she is continually encouraging me to get her a new dress.’ He also told me that previous to his wedding he had not even seen his wife veiled, though they were brought up in the same town. His sisters had described her so well to him that when he saw her for the first time, she was very much like what he had anticipated.

AN ARAB WEDDING PROCESSION

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I have described more fully elsewhere a marriage to which my wife and I were invited as guests, and as such full details of the ceremonial are given in Lane’s Modern Egyptians I shall not dwell on it here. Lane’s argument to those who severely condemn Islamic marriage laws is this: ‘As Moses allowed God’s chosen people, for the hardness of their hearts, to put away their wives, and forbade neither polygamy nor concubinage, he who believes that Moses was divinely inspired to enact the best laws for his people, must hold the permission of these practices to be less injurious to morality than their prohibition, among a people similar to the ancient Jews.’ This sounds fairly plausible, but we must not forget that Mohammedans accept Christ as a prophet as well as Moses, and also avow that each prophet taught them something higher than the preceding one had done, and there is certainly no licence as to polygamy or concubinage allowed in the teaching of our Lord. Their last prophet, and according to them their greatest, Mohammed, had overlooked this, and probably only codified what had more or less become a common practice in his day.

As the modern Jews now hold to one wife just as do the people amongst whom they live, so it is possible that in time the Moslems may also modify their marriage customs. Supply and demand has already had its effect, for with the restrictions on slavery, concubinage has of necessity lessened and respect for the husband of one wife is increasing amongst the better educated classes.

I started on a subject on the following morning, of an old house built alongside and overhanging an entrance to a mosque. A little coffee-shop under an archway, on the opposite side of the street, made an excellent point of vantage from which I could do my work without attracting too much attention. Mohammed, who accompanied me, made arrangements with the owner of the stall for my accommodation, and sat on the high bench near me, so as to keep off the more inquisitive. An ideal post for him, for he could smoke a nárgeeleh, sip coffee, and chat with the other clients as much as he pleased. He would brush away the flies with one end of his whisp, and poke with the other end any small boy who ventured too near me. ‘If one comes it may not matter, but if one stays fifty others will come also,’ he would say, as the stick of the whisp and a boy’s head came in contact.

It was also in the interest of the owner of the coffee-shop,—as Mohammed was careful to explain to him,—to make things comfortable for me, as I should spend many mornings here if I were not molested in my work. Besides my subject, which was a very beautiful one in itself, this was a useful perch from which to make studies of the people and animals which passed. It was in the Nahasseen, one of the busiest thoroughfares of Cairo, and scarcely an hour would go by without hearing the zaghareet, the shrill cries of joy which told of the approach of a bridal procession, or the doleful chorus, ‘Lá iláha illa-lláh,’ would prepare one for the passing of a funeral.

It has happened that the zaghareet was not always the accompaniment of the more cheerful procession, for these shrill cries of joy replace those of lamentation when a welee, a person of great sanctity, is carried to his last resting-place. The idea conveyed is that the joys now awaiting him more than compensate those he has left behind for his loss. There is a curious superstition, or maybe some other cause which we cannot explain, that if these cries of joy cease for more than a minute the bearers of the corpse cannot proceed. It is also maintained that a welee is able to direct the steps of his bearers to a particular spot where he may wish to be buried. Lane tells the following anecdote, describing an ingenious mode of puzzling a dead saint of this kind. ‘Some men were lately bearing the corpse of a welee to a tomb prepared for it in the great cemetery on the north of the metropolis; but on arriving at the gate called Bab-en-Nasr, which leads to this cemetery, they found themselves unable to proceed further from the cause above-mentioned. “It seems,” said one of the bearers, “that the sheykh is determined not to be buried in the cemetery of Bab-en-Nasr; and what shall we do?” They were all much perplexed; but being as obstinate as the saint himself, they did not immediately yield to his caprice. Retreating a few paces, and then advancing with a quick step, they thought by such an impetus to force the corpse through the gateway; but their efforts were unsuccessful; and the same experiment they repeated in vain several times. They then placed the bier on the ground, to rest and consult; and one of them beckoning away his comrades to a distance, beyond the hearing of the dead saint, said to them, “Let us take up the bier again, and turn it round quickly several times till the sheykh becomes giddy; he then will not know in what direction we are going, and we may take him easily through the gate.” This they did; the saint was puzzled, as they expected, and quietly buried in the place he had striven to avoid.’

I witnessed a similar thing in Japan, a year or two ago; but in that case it was an idol which showed a similar obstinacy. It was at the ‘Gion Matsuri,’ which annually takes place at Kyôto, when the Shinto god Susa-no-o is carried to his O Tabisho—that is, his sojourn in the country with his goddess.

No sooner had the god been placed on his portable throne than the wildest excitement was manifested by his bearers; some wished to carry him one way and some another, while others seemed rooted to the ground. A Japanese gentleman, who was with me, explained that until all the bearers felt drawn to pull one way, it was not known by which route the god had decided to go.

It is singular that a similar superstition should obtain with people differing as much as the Egyptians do to the Japanese.

The constant funerals which passed between me and my subject seemed little heeded by Mohammed and the other frequenters of the café, except when the chorus mentioned the name of the prophet, some would murmur, ‘God bless and save him’—‘Salla-lláhu-’aleyhi wasellem.’

The bridal procession, on the contrary, seemed to have a very depressing effect on my man, and he would hardly cheer up till a distant wail suggested another funeral.

On one occasion I recognised the camels with the magnificent trappings used when the holy carpet is conveyed to Mecca; they were doing duty as a kind of vanguard to a bride who followed in a litter swung between two other camels. It was a most picturesque sight, and one to take as many notes of as possible for reference to in a future picture. Fortunately the progress of the procession is slow, the traffic of the street compelling it frequently to stop. This would enable me to get ahead of it and jot down some of the arrangements of colour. The heavy gold and crimson trappings of one camel, a combination of green and gold on a second, while the gold brocade of a third was in a purple setting; all this in a blaze of sunshine, yet subdued compared to the light caught by the brass kettle-drums. The background in some places, too cut up in violent patches of light and shade by the awnings over the shops or too intricate with the drawing of a saracenic mosque entrance, filled me with confusion as to how I could ever treat such a subject.

When the broad plain surfaces of Barkûk’s and Kalaûn’s shrines made a setting to this gorgeous procession, I felt that my task had become more hopeful.

The number of facts I had to crowd into my memory in a half-hour or so, I found more exhausting than a long morning’s work on a subject such as the one I had left to pursue this one. To return to the little café where I had left Mohammed in charge of my painting materials, pack up my traps and go back to the hotel, was about as much as I was fit for during the rest of that morning.

CHAPTER III
THE MOSQUE OF MURISTÂN KALAÛN, MY EXPERIENCE WITH THE FAKÍR, AND A DIGRESSION ON THE SUBJECT OF DERVISHES

PASSING once more the mosque of Kalaûn, I was attracted to one of its windows; not on account of its particular interest as such, but of its possibilities as a point of vantage from which I might paint the opposite side of the road, and, unmolested, make studies of the interesting incidents which take place in it.

There was still time to go to the Wakfs ministry before it closed for the midday ‘siesta.’ ‘El Wakfs’ is the name of what we might term the Board of Religious Endowments. It is here where artists must apply for a pass to allow them to paint inside the mosques.

I fortunately found Herz Bey, the architect of the Wakfs, and he very kindly gave me what I required.

Apart from the window of Kalaûn’s mosque which would be of great use to me, its interior is one of the finest and most ornate in the whole of Cairo. I had found several subjects there in former years, and I looked forward to finding a pleasant asylum in which I could restfully do some work after the fatigue of some days of street painting.

The mosque was falling into a ruinous state when I had last entered it. Originally most gorgeous, its colouring had then been softened down by more than six centuries since en-Nasir completed the dome which covers the tomb of his father.

I also looked forward to a cooler spot than my café, for Cairo has far from cooled down during the first days of November. Though the thermometer may not register so high as in June, the damp heat during the high Nile is more felt than the greater, but dryer, temperature of early summer.

I was prepared not to find the mosque as paintable as in the earlier days,

‘Before Decay’s effacing fingers

Have swept the lines where beauty lingers’;

yet I was hardly prepared to find it to all appearance a brand new building. It had been admirably restored, and restoration was necessary, I have no doubt, to prevent its falling into complete ruin, as so many other monuments have done. But, alas, its poetry was gone. Nor is this likely to return so long as it is kept as a show-place merely, and only visited by the tourist or student of Saracenic architecture. The hundred and one signs which suggested the worshippers who had gathered here during the six bygone centuries were all swept away; the worn praying mats were gone, and any of the movable furniture which is not now shelved and labelled in a museum may have found its way to some dealer’s shop,—the place for which these things were designed knows them no more.

I started a large drawing, for in spite of all it is a beautiful building, and looks now in all probability very much as it looked when Nasir’s work-people left it. I worked hard at this drawing; spent whole mornings getting the intricate arabesque patterns into perspective and their relative tones; but the longer I worked the more my drawing became the lifeless perspective elevation plate of some book on architecture.

Some day, when my last impressions of the place may fade and I may remember more clearly the shrine retaining its human associations, I may possibly be able to take up this drawing again and infuse some life into it.

I did better from the window overlooking the Nahasseen.

The ruinous domed mosque—built before the one of Kalaûn—to shelter the remains of Ayyub es-Salih, has been heavily dealt with by ‘decay’s effacing fingers.’ Copper-smiths have rigged up their stalls against its crumbling walls, and the mosque school still hangs together sufficiently to be used by the youths repeating their Koran. This and an ever-moving crowd of people had at all events a soul left in it.

My regrets at having lost so much time in producing an artistic failure decreased in proportion as the use I was able to make of this window increased.

Facing immediately the street leading to the Beit-el-Kadi, I was able to take notes, on a market day, of all the incidents mentioned in the last chapter, and at ordinary times there would always be more than enough subject-matter to furnish the foreground of the couple of drawings I made from here.

A CHEAP RIDE

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The mosque being now a ‘sight’ more than a place of worship, a fee is charged for admittance; and even this matter, which I was regretting before now, proved an advantage to me, for the attentions of the inquisitive are usually more marked while making figure studies than while painting some inanimate subject.

Small boys would occasionally crawl on to the sill and hang on to the grating to try and see what I was doing, till my man, whom I kept outside, would send them away.

A ragged fakir chose the bit of pavement just below my window to do a little basking in the sun. Mohammed whispered to me, through the grating, that he was a great saint, and squatted next to him in the full odour of his sanctity. A current of air would now and again bring some of this odour my way; but I restrained Mohammed from disturbing the fakir in his sleep. Others were not so considerate, for, in spite of the old man’s saintly repute, a number of young hooligans soon surrounded him, and comments on his appearance provoked such laughter as to wake him up.

The fakir now seemed as one possessed of a devil; he laid about with his staff and cursed his tormentors with a fluency which only a long practice, during his unregenerate days, could have given him. A young woman at a safe distance called out to him that the ghawaga, that is I, was sketching him, whereupon he turned round and directed the flow of bad language in my direction. The grating was a protection from the old fellow’s staff, and an unused-up lot of curses soon fell on the head of Mohammed, who moved him off.

Too much attention having been drawn to my window, I retired with my materials within the shades of the mosque interior.

I made inquiries about the old man. The term, fakir, is used in Egypt to denote a wandering dervish, and is also applied to any poor beggar. His rags were not simply the torn garments of a poor man, but a carefully made coat of many patches and of variously coloured stuffs, known as a ‘dilk.’ Shreds of coloured cloth were also fastened to the end of his staff. He wore no turban, and had supplemented his own hair with what I believe ladies call ‘a front’ made from a horse’s tail.

I was told that he belonged to the Rifaiyeh order of dervishes, and was famous in his day for being able to pass swords through his body without leaving a wound; he would also charm serpents and scorpions away from a house, eat live coals and chew glass.

As I have seen many appear to do these wonders without necessarily being considered very holy men, there remained a more potent reason for his reputed sanctity. I tapped my forehead once or twice, suggesting that an excess of miracles must have made him mad. ‘His mind is in heaven and only his body remains on earth,’ was the answer to my suggested question.

A superstitious awe for persons whose intellect is affected obtains all over the Mohammedan world—the Cairo hooligan being apparently the exception.

The great majority of dervishes are men of some trade or another and take part in a zikr during the religious festivals; a few lead a tramp’s life and beg their way from town to town where one of these festivals may be taking place; while those who are mentally afflicted without being actually dangerous can generally find the wherewithal to live in the district to which they belong. The latter are now rarely met with in the European parts of Cairo, and as they seem generally bereft of all sense of decency, the police may have something to say in the matter.

I attended a zikr during my first visit to Egypt, when an evening with the Howling or Dancing dervishes was still looked upon as one of the ‘sights.’ These were often got up by the dragomans as an entertainment for the tourists. H. H. the Khedive has since forbidden these shows as liable to bring Islamism into disrepute. Some wit remarked of the dragomans, that they believed in Mohammed and his profits. The dervishes (or darweesh, as they are called in Egypt) were genuine ones, and argued that their religious exercises might be just as acceptable even if they resulted in some profit in the shape of a ‘baksheesh’ from the unbelievers.

The first part of the performance was the same as may be seen any evening, in any village, during the month of Ramadan.

About a dozen men sat in a double row facing each other, and, taking their time from a leader, began by slowly repeating the first words of the Moslem’s confession of faith: ‘Lá iláha illa-lláh,’ which they accompanied with a swaying of their bodies backwards and forwards. Gradually they would increase the speed of the repetition and the movements, always taking their time from the leader. This got faster and faster till their chief shouted ‘Alláh!’ Then, repeating this one word, the swaying of their bodies became so rapid that one or two fell down exhausted. The remainder kept it up as long as their physical endurance would allow; their mouths foaming, their faces livid, and a mad look in their eyes. Presently more would fall down; some lying still, and others to all appearance in their death agony. The cry of ‘Allah’ finally ceased when the leader fell forward, and, saving a gasp or a gurgle, all was still.

Some of us were preparing to leave when a sign from the conductor of our party kept us in our seats.

These bodies stretched on the floor—to all appearance dead or dying—looked ghastly in the light of the flickering torches.

We sat on some time wondering what the next move would be. A heavy breathing with alternate choking on the part of one of the performers directed our attention his way. After making several attempts to rise, he succeeded in getting into a sitting posture and stared vacantly at us. When he seemed conscious of where he was and what he was doing, he rose rapidly to his feet and spun round and round for several minutes; he next seized hold of a torch, continued his gyrations, and without stopping held the lighted torch under his one garment, allowing the flames to pass all over his body. It reminded me horribly of the straw fires with which peasants are wont to burn the bristles off a stuck pig.

A foreign princess who was of our party, and on whose behalf this zikr had been arranged, had now seen as much as she could stand, and she and her immediate suite went away.

The performers seemed quite unconscious of this disturbance; the man kept on spinning round, toasting his chest and then his back till he let fall the torch and sank down on the matting.

Another had in the meanwhile come to life again and begun to spin like a teetotum. He drew two knives from his girdle and, while continuing his motion, rested the points on his lower eyelids; he next hacked his face and forehead, and when the blood-letting had sufficiently cooled his frenzy he joined his companions on the floor.

The low muttered ‘Alláh’ from the other dervishes showed that they were awakening from the kind of cataleptic sleep they had fallen into.

A third one now arose and startled one of the spectators by rushing forward and seizing a tumbler near him; he bit off pieces of glass and crunched them in his teeth. He looked absolutely loathsome as he appeared to swallow the glass, with the blood streaming from his mouth. His craving for glass was not satisfied yet. The glass of an oil lamp near me caught his eye, and catching hold of it, hot as it was, he chewed it up as a half-starved dog would chew a bone.

I had now had more than enough, and slipped quietly off before a fourth began his ‘turn.’

Mohammed followed me out. He was not very communicative about the unnatural orgy we had assisted at, and as he is a good Moslem, I fancy he seemed ashamed of the performance.

While walking down the Mousky on the following morning, a cabman seated on the box of his arabeyeh greeted Mohammed with an unusually cheery ‘Salaam Alêkum.’ The answer, ‘Alêkum es-Salaam, ya ibne Kelb,’ with an accompanying shake of the finger, was surprising; that is, ‘The peace be with you, O son of a dog.’ The cabby laughed and drove on. Mohammed looked rather consciously at me, and seeing that I looked puzzled, he asked me if I did not recall that cabman’s face. Yes, I had seen him before, but when or where I could not say. ‘Why, he is the darweesh who ate all that broken glass last night.’

True enough, it was the very man! But no première danseuse seen with her tinsel and spangles behind the footlights, and afterwards met in everyday garb, could have shown as great a contrast as did this cabby and the wild dervish of the previous night. He was dressed in European clothes, except for the red tarbouch, and he seemed none the worse for his last night’s glass supper.

CHAPTER IV
THE FESTIVAL OF THE ‘HASANEYN’ AND THE STORY OF THE PRINCESS ZOHRA

THE promise I had made to my acquaintances in the Khan Khalil, to come again, was soon fulfilled. This great bazaar attracts me most when the season in the modern quarters of Cairo is over or not begun. I have painted so many of its shops and corners, that I and my faithful servant must be as familiar to the stall-holders as they are to us.

An opportunity occurred to see it by night, for, except on the great festival of the ‘Hasaneyn,’ the gates of the Khan are closed before the evening prayer.

The mosque of Hoseyn stands opposite the east entrance, and it is the one most used by the shopkeepers of these bazaars.

It is a spacious building, but of little interest from an architectural point of view. Its great popularity is one cause of this, for money could always be found to restore it, and unhappily a great wave of enthusiasm for the shrine of the martyred sons of Ali obtained during a late period of debased Saracenic architecture, during which the mosque was almost entirely rebuilt.

Before the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt no Christian or Jew dared pass down the street in which it stands, and even at the present day, when foreigners may visit the other mosques of Cairo, while the services are not being held, the actual shrine where the head of Hoseyn lies may only be entered by the faithful.

On the night in question it was possible to see as much as I wanted, as the doors stood wide open, and the interior was lighted with thousands of lamps. The whole street was roofed over with particoloured tent-cloth, which caught the light of the torches of the dervishes who filed in at the central doorway.

The noise of the cymbals, drums, and hautboys of the musicians mingled with the babel of voices which came from the mosque. Many inside were performing the zikr, and others were marching round and reciting the Fáthah, or a form of blessing on the prophet.

Every house was profusely decorated with flags, lamps, and festoons of coloured glass globes. The cafés were overflowing with customers, and high benches on the pavements outside were all occupied with listeners to the professional story-tellers who related the deeds of Hasan and Hoseyn.

It seemed strange to hear the names of these two brothers from the lips of so many orthodox Moslems, for at a previous festival in their honour, which I witnessed, only such as were under police protection dared shout ‘Hasan, Hoseyn.’ It was when the heretic Sheeas, mostly Persians, paraded the streets of Cairo—a gruesome sight it was—but at present we will confine ourselves to the doings of the orthodox Sunnees, to which sect the bulk of the Egyptians belong.

THE KHAN KHALIL, CAIRO

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‘Though those dogs of Sheeas,’ an Egyptian will tell you, ‘almost make gods of Hoseyn and also of his father Ali, is that a reason why we should fail to honour his birthday? Was he not, after all, a grandson of the Prophet?’ It is fortunate, however, that both sects do not keep the festival on the same day, or it would be more than the police could do to prevent them coming to blows.

How different the Khan looked, lighted up as it then was by hundreds of lamps in and around the shops! In places brilliantly coloured tent-cloths stretched across the lanes, and on every mastaba the store-keeper was entertaining his friends. The dark intervals were the shops kept by Christians or Jews, which were carefully shuttered up for the night.

The silk merchant, Mustâpha, and his opposite neighbour Seleem were both here, and I was not sorry to accept the former’s kindly invitation to sit down. Being unused to smoking the nargeeleh or the almost obsolete shibook which were offered me, he procured some cigarettes and clapped his hands to summon the boy from the coffee-stall. He regretted that the mooled of the Hasaneyn was not now as in former days, when hardly a shop in the whole Khan was not lighted up like as his and Seleem’s. ‘Jews, Nazarenes, Parsees, and what not else, were invading the stalls held by the faithful,’ he said, pointing to the shutters of those unenlightened people.

‘Allahu! Allahu!’ from the street outside was clearly heard during the pauses in the conversation.

‘Was it possible now for a Nazarene to enter the mosque and see the tomb where Hoseyn’s head lay buried?’ I asked, and also showed him the ticket I had, allowing me to paint in the mosques of Cairo. He read the instructions, and pointed out a line which made an exception for that particular shrine as well as for two others. The talk then drifted to an instance when one of my countrymen, disguised as a Moslem, was accidentally discovered near the tomb while the mooled was being held; of how he was nearly killed by the infuriated mob and saved by the intervention of the princess Zohra.

The story is so full of dramatic interest that, instead of giving the garbled versions which obtain in the bazaars, I will try to tell it as Max Eyth tells it in ‘Hinter Pflug und Schraubstock.’ Eyth was in Egypt during the lifetime of the princess and heard all the details from a former member of her household.

Zohra was the youngest living daughter of Mohammed Ali, Egypt’s first viceroy. She was the idol of her father and partook of his character more than did any of her numerous brothers and sisters. Her childhood was spent in the same hareem as that of her nephew Abbas, who was the same age as herself. Self-willed children as they both were, quarrels were of frequent occurrence. When Abbas would taunt her that she was only a little girl, she would remind him that she was the great Ali’s daughter, whereas he was only the son of her brother Tussûn. Words ending in blows one day, Abbas was packed off to a school and a governess was found for the young princess.

Wishing to have her taught both English and French, they engaged the services of a young Irish lady, a Miss O’Donald, who had been brought up in Paris and spoke French as well as her own language.

Western ladies had hitherto been little seen in Egyptian hareems; the Mohammedan ladies disapproved of the greater liberty enjoyed by the newcomer and soon grew jealous of the great influence the governess held over her pupil.

As Zohra grew older, Miss O’Donald became more of a companion than a teacher, and she remained in the viceroy’s service for eight years. Abbas had in the meantime left his school and had a hareem of his own in his grandfather’s palace. He never forgave Zohra for having been the cause of his banishment, and awaited his time to wreak his vengeance.

Mohammed Ali had not yet found a husband for his daughter; he aspired to marrying her to a Sultan or to a son of the Khalif himself. It therefore happened that at the age of sixteen Zohra still remained single.

It was at a festival of the Hasaneyn that she met her fate. Accompanied by Miss O’Donald and two of the eunuchs, she went to visit the tomb of Hoseyn, for women at all times, says the narrator, are more attracted to the shrines of heroes than to even that of the Prophet himself. The mosque was so crowded with people that the dervishes could hardly find room in which to perform the zikr.

The eunuchs managed to force a way through the crowd so as to allow the princess to approach the tomb, and while she was saying her prayers at the shrine of the hero, she was disturbed by an uproar which arose not far off. Shouts of ‘a Christian’ resounded through the building. Sticks were raised and knives unsheathed by an infuriated mob, who surrounded a tall, fair-haired man who, with his back to the wall, was hitting out right and left to keep his assailants at bay. His turban had fallen off, and his fair and unshaven head showed only too clearly that he was not a Moslem.

‘It’s my brother,’ called out the governess, and appealed to those near her to go to his rescue. Zohra, who had now reached her side, first saw the blood-stained and handsome face of the young Irishman, and uttering a piercing scream, she ordered the assailants to desist. Seeing from her attendants that she belonged to the viceregal household, there was a slight pause, and those near her made way for her to reach the one they had been attacking. She took the young man by the hand and led him, through the murmuring crowd, into the street.

As they disappeared, loud cries of ‘Allahu! Allahu!’ resounded throughout the mosque. The princess threw her arms in the air and victoriously repeated the cry: ‘Allahu! Allahu!’—Such was their first meeting.

Two young mamelukes of the household of Abbas also happened to have witnessed the scene, and repeated every detail of it to their master. The narrator goes on to say that ‘Abbas was silent, like a serpent who coils itself in readiness for a spring.’

Spies were sent forth to find out who this man in truth might be. His name was O’Donald, and there was no doubt that he was the governess’s brother. He had first come to Egypt in 1840, when, after the siege of Beirut, Napier’s troops lay outside Alexandria. Fortune had then forsaken Mohammed Ali. He could not prevent his enemies from drinking Nile water as much as they pleased, and as the Arabs say: ‘He who has drunk Nile water will sooner or later return to the Nile.’

After the British troops had quitted Egypt, O’Donald resigned his commission and returned to Alexandria, where he had got a situation as manager to the overland route from that port to Suez. His sister had doubtless described his pupil to him, and had also entertained the princess with tales of his gallant deeds while serving in the army. Business matters had taken him to Cairo at the time of this festival, and his love of adventure had led to his disguising himself and entering a mosque forbidden to all save the believers.

Zohra, whose affections had so far been disengaged, was all too ready to fall in love with this handsome Irishman, whose praises she had so often heard from the lips of his sister. Beholding him for the first time bravely repelling the attack of the infuriated mob, he personified in her imagination the heroism of those who first spread the Mohammedan faith. To use the words of the narrator: ‘She was taken as in a whirlwind. Love consumed her as a fire. She wept through the whole of that hot night. She implored one of her sisters to help her to meet her lover, and on her refusal she bit her in the cheek.’

Miss O’Donald was alarmed at the state of her pupil and also for the safety of her brother. She wrote and warned him to keep away from Cairo, and if possible to get away from Egypt. Unfortunately the eyes of the young princess confirmed the glowing descriptions of her beauty which his sister had given, and the young Irishman seems to have been consumed with the same fire as that of his lady-love. Instead of keeping away from Cairo, he contrived to get his company to give him a post in that city.

On the third night of Bairam, when rich and poor, old and young, repair to the cemeteries to pray at the graves of their belongings, the young lovers seized on this opportunity to see each other once more. Zohra went with the women of her hareem to that great wilderness of tombs on the south-eastern outskirts of the city. She was not slow in recognising her lover in the apparently devout Moslem who came to pray at the tomb where she sat. The wailing of the women and the howling of the dervishes, performing the zikr, were a sufficient noise to prevent the words the two interchanged from being heard by Zohra’s attendants, and before they parted a future means of meeting had been arranged.

‘I believe,’ goes on the story-teller, ‘that she loved him as the heroes of our faith in the olden times loved the beautiful women whom Allah had given them as a foretaste of Paradise. He also must have loved her as one bereft of his senses, for he must have known that he moved amidst naked daggers or even worse.’

On the night previous to the ‘Yóm Gebr el-Bahr,’ which signifies ‘the Breaking of the River’ (and when the dam is cut to enable the Nile to replenish the canal which used to flow through Cairo), great festivities take place. Tents are erected on each bank of the canal and also on the edge of the island of Rodah, which faces the canal’s entrance. The river is crowded with boats lit up with numerous lanterns; fireworks are let off and guns are fired; yet they fail to drown the noise of the musical instruments and the eternal refrain of the singers. Cairo makes a night of it.

From the farther side of the island of Rodah our princess stepped on to her dahabieh which was moored at the river edge of the palace gardens. She was accompanied by the hareem, and she gave orders to let the barge drift down the river and to drop the anchor where the crowd of boats was not so great.

The ladies of the hareem, including Miss O’Donald, remained on the deck, from whence they obtained a good view of the fireworks and of the festivities taking place on the Nile. Zohra retired to her cabin, and might by the light of her candle have been seen by many of the folks outside, were these not too much occupied in merry-making. The candle was moved to and fro for a few seconds and then extinguished.

From the shadow of a clump of trees overhanging the edge of the river an English-built skiff issued into the main stream, then shot along the side of the dahabieh and came to a standstill. The lovers had met once again.

Skilfully as this had been managed, it had not been unobserved by Miss O’Donald, who, in a fever of anxiety, paced up and down the deck. The skiff could be seen by the lights of some boats which had drifted that far down the stream. The governess also suspected that Abbas had spies amongst the women of the hareem; but she dared not breathe a word of warning to her brother below for fear of attracting attention.

Not only had he been seen, but from a neighbouring cabin an assignation had been overheard and in due time reported to Abbas. They were to meet the following night in the garden of the palace at Rodah. Zohra felt sure of the silence of the eunuchs and also of her female attendants; she had not, however, bribed some of the crew as highly as Abbas had done.

O’Donald, the next night, fastened his boat under the trees which project over the garden wall and picked his way along the edge of the river to the steps at the Nile entrance. He found the gates unlocked, and walked in. Instead of his lady-love four armed mamelukes issued from the shrubbery and rushed to attack him. The Irishman dropped two with his revolver, and the other two turned and bolted.

Abbas was awaiting events at the garden door of the hareem, which he had locked from outside. When he heard the firing and the howls of his mamelukes, he felt sure that events had not turned out quite as he had intended. Miserable creature as he was, Abbas was no coward, and his agents having failed him, he rushed down himself to attack the enemy.

A kick on his shin sent him sprawling into a flower-bed, and O’Donald made off to his skiff. He had, however, recognised whom it was that he had knocked over. But before he could take safety in flight he felt bound to send a warning to Zohra and also to get his sister away.

The story-teller goes on to say: ‘In such moments one’s reasoning becomes confused. Allah alone can help one. But why should Allah stretch forth a helping hand to the unbeliever whose audacious conduct well merited punishment?’

A French Jewess, known as Madame Ricochette, resided in Cairo at that time. She used to visit all the principal hareems to trade in Paris jewellery and bonbons. O’Donald went to see her early on the following morning, and with promises and flattery induced her to take a note to the princess and to bring back an answer. He was to meet Zohra in the garden for the last time, his sister was to come away with him in his boat, and they were to leave Cairo at once.

They never saw each other alive again. He was shot on the threshold of the hareem in Zohra’s garden. Abbas had intercepted the letters and had apprised Mohammed Ali of the affair. Six Arnauts—good, dependable shots—were sent and were placed behind some bushes which the ill-fated man would pass on the way to his love. Six bullets ended his earthly career.

Abbas was a clever organiser. A mule was kept in readiness to carry the body away, and two of the Arnauts placed it on the beast while the others remained with the prince. The hareem door was thrown open and, as Zohra approached, Abbas laughingly welcomed her to her lover.

‘Such women,’ goes on the narrator, ‘do not go off in a faint, as do yours in the West. She flew, as one possessed, to the corpse of her beloved, and steeped her hands in his blood. She had to be dragged away and carried back to the hareem. When she had recovered from her stupefaction, she ordered two servants to see Miss O’Donald off to Alexandria, where friends would see her safely on board the first home-going steamer; the princess also provided her handsomely with the means to get back to her country.’

Worse is still to follow. The devil in Abbas had become more potent than ever. He had the body of the Irishman taken to Shubra and buried in an outlying field—upright, with the head below and the feet sticking out of the ground. Then spoke Abbas: ‘Allah, do thou with him as thou wilt; but the dogs shall devour the feet which kicked me.’

The field was guarded during a week; no one dared enter by day, and at night the jackals and dogs did their work. There in that field, to this day, stands with head downwards a footless corpse!

The O’Donalds, we are told, had no influential relations to get this matter investigated, and the English company to which O’Donald belonged knew more than enough to keep them silent. The young Irishman had placed his life in the balance with his love and had lost.

‘Alláhu! Alláhu! Alláh, láh, láh, láh,’ came the ever-increasing cries from the mosque outside the Khan. The dervishes were working themselves up into a state of frenzy; and had my permit to work in the mosques not made an exception of the Hasaneyn, it would have taken a bolder man than myself to have entered then. I bade my kindly host good night and found my way back to the European quarter.

CHAPTER V
OF THE OLD AND THE NEW CAIRO, AND OF A VISIT TO THE SHEYKH AMMIN SAHEIME

IT is unfortunate that an artist, residing in Cairo for the purpose of painting its people and its buildings, cannot live in the city where his chief interests lie. For there are at present two Cairos: the one an old oriental city, the other a nondescript modern European town, placed, as it were by accident, between the Nile and its more venerable neighbour. The foreigner who speaks of Cairo alludes to the great blocks of buildings and the palatial hotels which form this modern town, and he usually terms those other parts which he has scarcely seen—the native quarters. The true Cairo, and the one of which we speak, lies in a rough parallelogram between the walls running from the Citadel to the Bab el-Futouh at the eastern extremity and the Khaleeg, or the old canal now filled in, on the west. The northern and southern extremities end at the mosques of Hakim and of Ibn Tulún respectively. Two outlying bits still remain north and south of the new quarters, and are known as Bulak and Old Cairo. There are remains here and there of a yet older Cairo, which stood on the south-west of the present city.

I should dearly love to live in that part spoken of as the native quarters, instead of having to live at some distance and amongst surroundings which do not lend themselves to pictorial treatment. I had the opportunity to live in a beautiful old house which has been carefully restored under the superintendence of Herz Bey, and which stands in the very heart of the old town. The inconvenience of housekeeping, the putting in of necessary furniture, and, above all, the insanitary condition of its immediate neighbourhood, decided me not to avail myself of this opportunity. There would also have been the fear of fire. The beautiful mushrbiyeh work which encloses all the windows, and is as dry as touchwood, might at any moment be set on fire through the action of a careless servant. The house is a perfect specimen of an old Cairene dwelling, and it has been wisely repaired and is kept in order at the expense of the Wakfs administration. Possibly restrictions as to the lighting of fires would have been imposed on me, which would have necessitated a journey to the European quarters whenever I wished for a hot meal.

No, one cannot live here surrounded with what one loves to paint; one may remain a lifetime in Cairo and not be of it.

The joy of having bright sunny weather in midwinter is very great, and it is also a pleasure to meet friends at the club or hotels, and for those inclined that way balls and parties can be attended on most evenings during the season. Personally I would forego most of these things to live more in touch with the life of the old city. As an illustration of how little the inhabitants of the European quarters are concerned with what takes place in Cairo proper, I will give the following:—

While I was painting in the Suk es-Selah, or the gun-makers’ bazaar, an old house fell in not many paces from where I was sitting. As the house was inhabited, willing hands were soon on the spot to assist in excavating those who might be buried under the ruins. Help was also soon available from official quarters, and during the course of the day five dead bodies were unearthed. I did not expect this to be given as important a space in the newspapers—edited and circulating in the modern quarters—as an account of the last ball at Shepheard’s would have received; but I thought a line describing an event which cost the lives of five people might have appeared amongst the smaller items of news. There was no mention of it in any of them. When I remarked on this to some European residents, I was casually told that a house felling down was of constant occurrence, and a lady remarked on hearing of the five Arabs who had been killed, ‘Il en reste encore bien assez.’ From the little interest shown, one might have supposed that this event had taken place somewhere in China, instead of within a couple of miles from the hotel we were in.

I witnessed the funeral procession of a noted Sheykh of Islam this last winter. The cortège was more than a mile in length, and thousands of people crowded the streets to pay their last respects to so eminent a coreligionist. A roar of voices, repeating the profession of the Mohammedan faith, rose from every quarter of the Arab city. I looked for some information in the Cairo papers, but not a mention of it did I find. The Arabic papers were doubtless full of the event; but as few Europeans, though they may speak the colloquial language fluently, can read the written Arabic, the news of the old town rarely spreads to the new.

The older residents are seldom seen in the old parts of the city, and that is easy to understand, for familiarity with things eastern breeds an indifference with the majority, even if it does not descend to contempt. The surprise is that so few are met there of the thousands of people who flock to Egypt for a short season. A drive down the Mousky—one of Cairo’s least interesting streets—a visit to the Khan Khalil, then a walk round three or four mosques and a view from the citadel. After this a feeling of satisfaction that the ‘native quarters’ have been thoroughly done. The fear of smells seems to haunt them, for the hands not carrying a kodak or fly-whisp often hold a handkerchief near their noses. Bad smells are to be found for those who seek them, though not as many as in most old European towns.

These might be removed to advantage. But how much would Cairo not lose of its charm if, deprived of the sense of smell, one wandered through its bazaars or loitered about its market-places? I cannot think of the coffee-stalls without their aroma of moka and of latakiyeh. The spice bazaar recalls the warm land breezes from some tropic isle. Would the colour of the fruit-stalls charm the eye equally, were the scent gone from their piles of russet and gold? Even the smell of tan seems to enhance the sight of the brilliantly hued skins in the leather-workers’ bazaar.

Though each sense may occasionally be shocked, each plays its part in the enjoyment of all things. To any one keenly interested in this mediæval city, and who has studied its buildings, the eye is unhappily more often now shocked than the nose. Uglinesses which are hardly noticeable in the European quarters are slowly invading the old parts of the city. I have seen many a beautiful latticed window replaced by ready-made imported sashes, or where the seclusion of the hareem is necessary, an ugly fretwork in lieu of the turned mushrbiyeh which gave so much character to the Cairene dwelling. Streets formerly covered in with rafters and matting are now exposed to the baking sun, so as to allow more light on the cheap European goods behind the plate-glass windows. The official mind is obsessed with the idea that official work needs trousers, and all aspirants to official billets don these ugly garments and abandon the graceful kuftân and the flowing gibbeh. The same thing has occurred in the government schools.

Trousered policemen tread their beat by day, while the night watch is allowed to go its rounds in the native costume; presumably because it is less seen. The metal fanus which swing before the mosque entrances are being replaced by ugly petroleum lamps. The water-carrier will disappear as each stand-pipe is erected; this doubtless has its hygienic advantages. But had the well-to-do still the same pride in their city as had their forefathers, the water would have been conducted to the beautiful fountains which are now allowed to fall into decay.

Fortunately Cairo is large, and some years may yet elapse before ugliness will have crept into its innermost recesses.

Round and about the Tumbakiyeh—where the coarse Persian tobacco is retailed to the smokers of the nárgeeleh and the sheesheh—the old-world look seems still stern enough to frighten off any shoddy European accessories. Massive doors, nail-studded and heavily hinged, close in the Wekálehs where the tumbak is stored. More or less dilapidated gateways lead into spacious Khans where formerly caravans from Syria and Arabia unloaded their merchandise. The convent mosque of Beybars, the Taster, dominates this district. From its pepper-box minaret one can look down on extensive warehouses now partitioned into tenements of the very poor; houses of erstwhile merchant princes are now falling into decay, and their gardens used as rope-walks or bleaching-grounds. The mueddin’s call to prayer sounds like the funeral dirge of the departed glories of the Tumbakiyeh. The main street, known as the Gamalieh, has all the dignity of age; it is too poor a district, and too far from the present business centres, to be rejuvenated with the lack of taste which has ruined the Mousky.

Down a narrow lane leading out of the Gamalieh, a fine old doorway and some well-preserved oriel windows gave every promise that this was the back of a fine old Cairene house, still inhabited by its owner, and not allowed to fall into the ruinous state of most of its neighbours. My man Mohammed was with me when I made the discovery. I asked him to inquire to whom it belonged, and to try to find out if the interior was at all in keeping with what we saw from the lane.

SUK ES-SELAH, CAIRO

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Mohammed is a man of great resource. After considering his mode of procedure for a moment, he pushed open the door, which stood ajar, and we could see the bowab, or doorkeeper, asleep on the stone seat at the angle of the passage. Mohammed stepped lightly along this passage, evidently in hopes of getting round the angle and obtaining a peep into the courtyard, without awaking the sleeper. Not succeeding in this, and being asked what he wanted, he started inquiries after an imaginary relative who surely was once a servant in this household. ‘Is this not, then, the house of so-and-so?’ giving the name of an imaginary owner. ‘Then who does live here?’ The real name of the owner was then given by the doorkeeper. By a few more leading questions, it was found out that the owner was in his country place, and would not return till the cooler weather set in. Mohammed had in the meanwhile got his peep into the court, and had seen quite enough to feel satisfied that here was what I wanted. As the hareem was in the country, there would be no objection to the ghawaga also having a peep into the court, especially as a baksheesh might follow on the peep.

I was then allowed in, and here was a court similar in plan to many ruinous ones I had seen; but in a perfect state of preservation, and suggesting many beautiful things in the house which overlooked it. I had never painted in the interior of a fine Cairene house, still kept up as in the days before Ismael Pasha uttered his boast—‘L’Egypte fait partie de l’Europe.’ I made inquiries amongst Egyptian as well as European friends regarding the owner, and whether it would be possible to get an introduction to him. I was told that he was one of the old school, lived as his forebears had done, and did not frequent the modern quarters. The more inaccessible this gentleman seemed to be, the more I longed for an entrée into his house. Years went by, and this court remained in my memory as a beautiful picture which Lewis only could have adequately painted.

Towards the latter part of my last season in Cairo, I mentioned to my friend, Mr. Bowden Smith, how difficult it was to obtain permission to paint in the few, yet remaining, genuine old Cairene houses. His work, connected with the ministry of finance, had brought him in contact with many of the upper class Egyptians, and he named several houses he could take me to see. ‘Have you seen the house of the Sheykh Saheime near the Gamalieh?’ he asked, and described the very place which years since had made so lasting an impression on me.

We went there the very next day, and were fortunate in finding the Sheykh at home. We were received in the takhtabosh, a spacious recess opening on to the court, and under the principal guest-chamber, which latter is supported by a handsome granite column. A row of carved wooden benches line the three walls of the recess, and rest on a paved floor a few inches higher than the open court. Cushions were placed for our accommodation, and we were courteously asked to sit down. Here we took our coffee and conversed with our host.

I told him how glad I was to meet one who still had a pride in the beautiful things his country had produced, and who preferred keeping up the home of his ancestors to living à l’Européenne in the modern quarters. He could not foretell what his sons might do; but as far as he was concerned, he would keep to the dress of his forebears and end his days in the dwelling-places which they had built. ‘Should I better myself,’ he asked, ‘if I left this house for one at Kasrel-Aine, or in the Ismaelieh quarter?’ A vision of the pretentious villas ‘en style Arabe,’ ‘en style Egyptien,’ or, worse yet, the Levantine’s conception of ‘l’art nouveau,’ rose up before me, and by contrast made more beautiful the court we overlooked. The gentle cooing of the doves, and the sound of running water amidst the flowering shrubs, would never here ill-tune with the hooting of a motor. The roses, which garlanded the trellised windows, seemed more beautiful than those which try to hide the cast-iron balconies of modern Cairo. No sound from the outside world penetrated here till the solemn call to prayer from Beybar’s mosque recalled the hour of day.

We made a move, thinking that our host might wish to attend the Asr. To our delight, however, he asked if we would care to go over the house with him. Nothing suiting us better, he conducted us across the court to a door and passage leading to the mandarah or guest-room. The anteroom we passed through suggested a good subject, and I threw out some hints that I should like to do a sketch of it. Whether our host understood what I was driving at or purposely passed on to another subject, I could not quite make out; but a wink from my friend that he would have another try later on reassured me. The room was sparsely furnished, as is generally the case in oriental houses. High wooden benches lined the walls, and if we add to these a few cushions, some rugs, and one or two hanging lamps, we shall have described about all this anteroom contained. The light trickling through the latticed windows showed up the design of the mushrbiyeh, and it is not appreciable how decorative these turned wooden gratings are until they are seen from the inside. The wall surfaces were quite plain, and gave a value to the ornamentation surrounding the lintels of the three doors which opened into the room. On each lintel was a Koranic text in raised lettering and relieved on a blue ground.

The simplicity of the anteroom served to enhance the rich decoration of the guest-room itself. The durkááh, which is that part of the floor nearest to the entrance, had a beautiful tesselated pavement. In the centre stood a double-basined marble fountain sending up several jets of water, which were caught in a shallow well around its base. It is in the durkááh that the guest drops his slippers before ascending to the liwán, which is raised a few inches above the pavement and occupies about one-third of the apartment. Handsomely covered mattresses with heavy cushions line the three enclosing walls and form the diwaan or divan, as we call it. In this instance the ceiling of the liwán was several feet lower than the roof of the durkááh, and with its retaining arch bore much the same relation to the rest of the apartment as does that of the chancel to a one-aisled church. The intricate pattern of the mushrbiyeh occupied the place of an east window. Cupboards with minute panels of varying arabesque designs, and shelves with bowls and dishes of Rhodian or Egyptian ware, furnished the walls above the divan. The geometrical patterns on the ceiling and the vivid colours with which they were defined would have been disturbing to the eye, were it not for the subdued light, in which the decoration was partially lost.

Everything was harmonious, all seemed exactly right. I would fain have lingered on the divan and heard our host relate of deeds which may have been done within these walls. But there was more to see. Leaving this beautiful guest-chamber and crossing the anteroom, we were taken up a winding staircase to the hammám. Our Turkish baths are modelled on a similar plan, but as this one was only for private use, it was on a smaller scale than a public one, and marble floors and seats here took the place of more ordinary materials. From thence we were taken through a corridor and into another guest-chamber.

A slight smile on the face of our host seemed to express a question as to what we should say about this room, having exhausted our terms of admiration on the one below. Here was the place where he wished us to linger and sip our coffee until the mueddin once more called to prayer at the close of the day.

Some of the features of the mandarah—as the guest-room below is called—were here: the two levels of the floor defining the limits of the durkááh and that of the liwán; the tesselated pavement and marble fountain in the one and the mattressed and cushioned divan of the other; the mushrbiyeh also split up the light in a pattern suggesting the interlacing of strings of beads, and the panelling of the doors and ceiling were as rich in arabesque design as that which we had seen below. The one apartment was as truly Egyptian as the other, yet it left a distinctly different impression.

The more subdued light of the mandarah, as well as the chancel-like appearance of the liwán, had an impressiveness which was not here; but it might easily have appeared gloomy had we visited this lighter and more highly coloured room first.

We were now in what was probably the Káá, or principal apartment of the hareem of former days. I have learnt since that the Sheykh’s family is a small one, so the rooms overlooking the garden and in a wing of the house—which we were of course not shown—would be amply sufficient for the women-folk of his household.

The hareem, or harem, as it is often miscalled in England, is also often misunderstood. Its true meaning is the ‘prohibited,’ that is ‘sacred’ to the master of the house. It is that portion of the house which is confined to the women and children, and is not necessarily a kind of luxurious prison for a number of wives, which many unacquainted with the East often suppose. The ‘selamlik’ is that part of the house used by the male portion of the household. As the great majority of Egyptians have only one wife at a time, the hareem generally occupies less of the house than the ‘selamlik.’ The term ‘el hareem’ also applies to women collectively.

It would not have been proper to ask if the beautiful apartment we were in had ever been used as the Káá, for one must be on very intimate terms with a Moslem before alluding in any way to what concerns his women-folk. A feminine touch of lightness absent in the selamlik convinced me that we were being entertained in what at one time formed a part of the hareem.

The chief attraction was the grand display of beautiful old tiles which covered the walls. The design showed a Persian influence, and was not confined to the geometrical patterns of the more orthodox Saracenic work, and pretty as this is, it is the colour which gives it its great charm. Blues tending to green played with blues of a violet shade, touches of puce and emerald green joined in the revelry of colour. No ornaments were hung or bracketed on these wall spaces, for were they not ornament sufficient in themselves? The mattresses and cushions of the divan had richer coverings, were more elegant in pattern, and less sombre in hue than those of the divan we had first seen.

What a studio this would have made for any one desirous to paint eastern subjects! Better that it remain as it is—a dignified setting to a worthy Egyptian gentleman.

As the sun got more round to the west, the shadow of the mushrbiyeh patterned the floor, and gem-like touches of light crept slowly up the wall facing the great window. Above the turned wooden grating, which showed its design so beautifully in the shadow it cast, a second window admitted the light through numerous pieces of coloured glass set in deep mouldings of old plaster work.

Mr. Bowden Smith chatted with the Sheykh about mutual acquaintances and of affairs pertaining to the present day; but whether it was my insufficient knowledge of Arabic or whether my surroundings had carried my thoughts elsewhere, I lost the thread of their conversation. When appealed to about some point, I had, before I could answer, to disentangle my thoughts from ‘The story of the Humpback’ which I had pictured Shahrazad rehearsing to her sister in anticipation of one of the thousand and one nights. The two daughters of the Vizir had hardly settled the point as to the working of this story into the one of ‘Noor ed-Deen and Enees el Jelees,’ when the deep wail ‘Alláhu Akbar!’ from Beybar’s minaret announced the maghrib.

The patterned shadow had left the floor, and the touches of light from the stained glass, intensified in colour by the declining sun, crept from wall to ceiling as we rose to depart.

ENTRANCE TO THE HAREEM

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CHAPTER VI
MY SECOND VISIT TO THE SHEYKH AND MY EXPERIENCES WITH AN UNFAITHFUL SERVANT

MY friend explained to the Sheykh my desire to set up an easel in some parts of his house. A suspicious fear added to his wish to please gave me an uncomfortable feeling of having presumed on the good man’s hospitality. It took some time to clear his mind of any prejudicial effects which might ensue on my working here. Picture painting is so foreign to the Moslem’s education, and strictly speaking is a breach of Koranic law, that a slight hesitation in giving me permission is understandable. The likeness of nothing, which is in heaven above or in the earth beneath, hung on his walls to assist us in explaining the nature of my work; and that veil which is ever in a degree between the western and the oriental mind seemed thickened for a while. The wish to please, however, predominated over the suspicious fears, and he bade us farewell with the assurance that his house was at my disposal.

It was days before I returned, as I wished to complete a street scene I was then engaged on. I had lost my guide, philosopher, and friend, Mohammed, whom I did not wish to do out of a lucrative job up the Nile, and I had in his stead one with a plausible exterior, but possessing none of the virtues and all the vices which go to make up a dragoman. To work in the streets and bazaars in Cairo without a man to keep off the small boys is almost an impossibility, and much of one’s comfort depends on the tact and willingness of the man one employs.

Mansoor (to give him an alias) spoke and read English remarkably well, and having learnt like a parrot some sentences concerning the Pyramids and some of the chief monuments of Cairo, he was in hopes of soon obtaining a dragoman’s licence. Without this licence, happily, none may guide the tourist, and as an examination of sorts is now required, and also a character from some previous employer as to the good behaviour of the applicant, the tourist may run less risk in future of being hopelessly swindled than he did in earlier days. But acting merely as my servant, such licence was not a necessity. He had an irritating way of giving me uncalled-for information. The parrot-like sentences he had stored in his memory were repeated each time we passed a monument the tourist is taken to see. These might have been amusing had I not heard them ad nauseam before. I did not check him at first, and I even tried to supplement some facts absent from the little book which he had learnt by heart. His usual answer, ‘This is all the dragomans say,’ discouraged me from trying to teach him anything.

The Khan Khalil was the school in which the true tricks of his trade were to be studied. While I worked there, Mansoor would crawl about listening to the prices paid for the various purchases, and probably passed sleepless nights till he had found out about the commission the guides had obtained for bringing a customer. His smart clothes and his fluent English must have imposed on many a stall-holder that he was either a licensed dragoman or was shortly to become one. Coffee and cigarettes were pressed on him at whatever mastaba he deigned to sit.

While I worked in a mosque not far from this bazaar he would sit at the window and watch for tourists. Several times he had an uncle to bury. He would explain that there was only just time for him to pay his last respects to his deceased relative, and if I would let him go he would be sure to be back by the time I was prepared to leave. I would tell him to go and bury his relative, and had he asked to bury himself, I was prepared by this time to give him my full permission.

The last time he left me on his sorrowful errand, I mounted on to the window-sill where he was wont to watch for the prey as yet withheld from him. I saw a party of tourists just disappearing into an alley leading into the Khan Khalil, while Mansoor was questioning the driver of one of the cabs which they had left, and then he also was lost in the shadow of the selfsame alley. He returned some time after I was ready to start for my hotel, and I told him that as he had taken so long in burying his uncle, he should attend no more funerals while he was in my service. To be told a lie is seldom pleasant; but a very stupid lie reflects on the intelligence of the hearer, and this may partly have accounted for my growing dislike of this man.

I had unfortunately not found another to take his place when I went to the house of the Sheykh Saheime to start a drawing. I was most courteously received, and was told to ask for anything which I might require. I began a drawing from the anteroom of the mandara looking into the court and through the passage, which also led to the stairs of the former hareem. I did not wish to begin a too elaborate subject till I felt more sure that repeated visits were not inconvenient to my host. Mansoor joined the doorkeeper and the eunuch on their bench at the front entrance, where he doubtless enhanced his own importance by lying about my riches and relationship to the various high English officials in Cairo. The inconvenience of such lies is that a tip proportionate to such imagined wealth is looked forward to. He came presently as the bearer of a message from the Sheykh, that had the latter known I was coming that day, he would have prepared a dinner for me; but that he hoped I would return on the following morning and would honour him with my presence at the midday meal. I was grateful for his kind intentions, and yet sorry that I might be putting him to some trouble and inconvenience. I wished to come here often, and would only feel comfortable about doing so if I felt sure that I was not disturbing him.

Not feeling sure as to my intentions, he came himself, and was not satisfied till I had promised to dine with him the next day. Mansoor was later cross-questioned as to whether I liked such and such a dish. Did I always eat with a knife and fork? He supposed I sat on a chair while I fed, and could Christians get through a meal without strong drink? Such questions were duly repeated to me, so I sent my man back to the Sheykh with a message that the more the dinner was as he was accustomed to have it, the more I should appreciate his hospitality.

I was there early on the following morning, as I wished to complete my drawing before the meal took place. I had a good long paint with no other company but a weasel, which is often seen in Egyptian houses to keep off the mice and rats, or whatever one chooses to call that creature which is too large for the former and too small for the latter. I know of but one name for either of these pests, and firán does duty for both. Cats are also household pets, but are less adaptable for spying out the secret places where the firán are wont to nest their young.

A message came from the Sheykh to know if I wanted my dinner at twelve or at one o’clock. I sent Mansoor to find out what his usual hour was, and being told that it was just after the midday prayer, I sent word that no other time would suit me better.

About half-past twelve the Sheykh appeared, followed by a gentleman in European clothes and a ‘tarbouch.’ I was introduced, and informed that this was a cousin and a judge of a native tribunal. I was relieved to find that the judge spoke French fluently, for my Arabic is liable to fail me if put to too severe a test. They seemed interested in my drawing, and held it close to their eyes to enable them to decipher the text engraved on the lintel of the door. It is a never-failing surprise to Easterns if they can read any lettering which one may have introduced in a drawing. ‘The ghawaga says he can’t write Arabic; then how is it that we can read what he has here written?’ My explanation that I had merely copied the strokes and dots which I saw before my nose seldom satisfied these inquiries, and generally left a suspicion of something uncanny. Needless to say here that the lady now shown in the illustration was non-existent at that time, and not being of the beau sexe myself, the privilege of seeing one at any time in this house was not to be expected. There are still some things left which the painter may do and which are still beyond the power of the camera.

Now, a word of warning to any one who may be about to dine for the first time with one of the Near East. To put it crudely: Come with an empty stomach and eat as sparingly of the first dishes as you can. They may be very good; but our powers of absorption may fail us, and we might have to pass several subsequent courses untouched, which might be taken as a slight to the quality of the fare. I was prepared for this, and had made a very light breakfast. The grace, repeated in a low voice by the master, is always impressive: ‘Bi-smi-lláhi-r-raḥmani-r-raḥeem’

(In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful), and the smell of the savoury dish which had been placed before us made the ‘Tafaddal’ or invitation to sit down doubly welcome. Chairs had been borrowed, as a concession doubtless to the requirements of the Ferangi, and a plate, knife, and fork were also placed before me. I dismissed the latter articles as only being necessary to cut up the tougher food of Europeans, and as quite useless with the tenderer dishes of the Muslemeen. The Sheykh seemed pleased at this and, as is the custom, first tasted of the dish.

When I tore a piece off the thin flat loaf placed before me and, doubling it, I hooked a piece of meat out of the dish, he exclaimed that I had eaten in Arab fashion before. The judge agreed with me that with Arab dishes he did not see where a knife and fork came in. Not partaking so freely of the yachnee as to satisfy our host, he took a delicate morsel out of the stew and handed it to me.

The manner of eating with the fingers seems strange at first; but it is astonishing how soon one gets accustomed to it, and also how much more delicate it seems than when described to those who may never have witnessed it. The right hand should always be used if possible, and should a fowl be served, it is polite to catch hold of one leg, so as to enable the master to dismember the bird without having to use his left hand. It may take as long to learn the etiquette pertaining to the Arab mode of eating as for an Arab to acquire all the niceties observed at an English table. Should a stranger, however, from want of experience do something contrary to the usages of the country, an oriental will pretend not to notice it, as a well-bred Englishman would do if the cases were reversed.

Dish followed on dish; when some sweetstuffs were placed on the table my hopes revived, till they were replaced by yet another stew. My powers of absorption had about reached their limit. I appealed to my host to consider the limited dimensions of my lower waist, and that that only prevented me from doing full justice to his generous fare. This had some effect, and I was let off with a tit-bit which he politely handed to me in his fingers. ‘El-ḥamdu li-lláh!’

(Praise be to God) from the judge, who rose up and continued the conversation while washing his hands, was the abrupt sign that our feast was at an end.

A servant held a brass basin while a second poured the water from a ewer over my hands, and, our ablutions at an end, we were conducted to the takhtabosh to sip our coffee and smoke. I was asked where I had dined before in Arab fashion, and my host was interested to hear about some dishes peculiar to Morocco, also how I had fared with the Druses in the Lebanon. An Arab meal, in fact, was not in itself a novelty to me; but, as I explained to the Sheykh, I had never dined in such beautiful surroundings. We got on to the subject of Japan, where the mode of eating is much more difficult to acquire than that of the Near East. My hearers showed a much greater interest in things Japanese than I expected, for as a rule a Moslem’s sympathies rarely extend to countries beyond the sway of Islam. How I had got on without meat, bread, milk or butter surprised them, and settled any possible doubts as to whether they might wish to go there themselves. I am told that during the Russo-Japanese war events were followed with keen interest in Egypt. Every victory of the Japanese was construed into a victory of a non-Christian people over a Christian power—of the Asiatic over the European. When a book I had written on my experiences in Japan appeared at the Cairo booksellers’, I was interviewed by the editor of an Arabic paper to give him as many particulars as I could concerning Japan.

THE TAKHTABOSH

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I avoided all talk as to the present régime in Egypt. Though one of my hearers had a safe billet, and the Sheykh probably felt a greater security for the property he holds than he would if our occupation of Egypt ceased, nevertheless the sting of being governed by the unbelievers is always there, let the unbeliever’s yoke be ever so light a one.

A suspicion that I might be hindering the afternoon nap induced me to bid farewell to my host and the judge.

Mansoor had been having a good time feasting with the servants, and when he joined me I asked him to divide a riyal between those who had served me. I watched him present the money to one of them and in the presence of the others, for I had reason to suspect his honesty. I could not hear the talk which followed, but saw the money passed on to a boy, who was told to go to a shop and change it. I saw no object in waiting any longer, so left the house. Mansoor wished to stay behind, and as I did not see why he should get any of the tip, I made him come with me. In the main street I hailed a passing cab. Mansoor now seemed rather disturbed and asked if he could go back. ‘The boy will not know where to bring the change of the riyal.’ ‘Did you not tell the boy to give the changed money to be divided among the servants?’ I asked. ‘No, I did not say it was for the servants,’ he answered, with the look of a detected thief; ‘I told him to bring the change back to you, sir. Please allow me to return to the house and I will tell them what your intentions were.’ I could not return myself to see the matter through, as I remembered an appointment I had to keep, and I let the man go. It dawned on me as I drove to my hotel that Mansoor’s object in hanging behind was to intercept the boy returning with the change and to pocket the lot himself.

Explaining the circumstances to one who had had a long experience of native servants, I was assured that my suspicions were not unfounded. This villain, who had been well entertained by the servants of the house, had conceived this ingenious manner of robbing them of their gratuity.

When he turned up the next morning I told him I should want him no longer. Seeming to question the reason of his sudden dismissal, I suggested a police inquiry as to the disposal of the riyal. He wished to hear no more, and vanished like the ghost who was asked for a subscription.

Now this is a type of man who, but for the salutary regulation as to granting licences, would have become a dragoman, and have reaped a good harvest, during the short season, by robbing the tourist by day, and conducting others by night to witness every kind of abomination.

CHAPTER VII
IN WHICH I GET ANOTHER SERVANT AND HUNT FOR A CROCODILE; ALSO A CONTINUATION OF THE STORY OF PRINCESS ZOHRA

I FOUND a man, who was used to attending artists on their rounds, sooner than I had hoped for. He was a rougher type of man than my last one, but one to whom I took much more readily. He spoke no English, which was in his favour, for though this might sometimes be inconvenient, it suited my purpose better to practise my Arabic than to have him airing his English on me.

Mahmood Hanafy is his name. I give it with pleasure, and in hopes that possibly these lines may be read by some one who might be glad of his services. No two men of the same nationality could have been a greater contrast than this Mahmood and the disgraced Mansoor. The more traps Mahmood had to carry, the more he seemed to like it; when I suggested taking a cab, he would say the place was no distance, and cabs were very dear—he had evidently been well trained by former brother-brushes. Mansoor, on the other hand, always had a cab near the hotel when we started, and would place my sketching things on the box in hopes I would take it. Distances were always enormous with him, and when I took a cab, he would declare that the doubled fare asked was none too much. The extra squeeze he could then get out of the cabby harmonised with his natural laziness. Mahmood was a plucky fellow, and ready to clear a street of people if he thought they were in my way; while Mansoor’s bravery never went further than slapping a child if the parents were not present, whereas, if some hooligans promised to be a nuisance, he generally slipped away.

Mahmood had one drawback which his predecessor had not, and that was a loud voice. Now, as no pillow was ever thick enough to prevent my hearing my watch ticking, a huge volume of sound was not necessary when he answered my questions. If he thought I did not understand him, he evidently took it for hardness of hearing, and his answers would be loud enough to startle the street. I could not correct him of this, though he tried to mend. Trained as a donkey-boy, this voice had doubtless been of use both in directing his beast and in the altercations which often end a ride. Possibly the deafest donkeys were placed in his care. He was now the owner of many donkeys, he told me, and he let them out by the month instead of running after one himself. He was always ready, however, to run after one if I should require it. His dress was more humble than that of Mansoor, but he never pleaded poverty to try and get something over his wage. He told me he had all he wanted, and should I not wish to use him for a few days, he would willingly rest till his services would be required.

The other man, though smartly dressed, had always some tale of poverty handy when I gave him his wage, and always begged for an advance on his future pay. Had he not a number of people dependent on him? and the cost of food, had it not risen so much? I found out afterwards that he had no dependants, and that he sponged on his sisters when he was out of work. He had the appearance of one addicted to hashsheesh, and probably only smoked this of an evening, for I could never detect the smell.

This drug is happily now forbidden to enter the country, and strong measures are taken to prevent its use. A certain amount does, however, get smuggled in, and the ḥashshash

or victim to the drug can still procure it if he can pay for its enhanced price. The smell of its fumes was much more familiar formerly in the humbler coffee-shops; but it is not quite absent now. It is often mixed with tumbák, a kind of Persian tobacco, and is smoked in the gózeh, a pipe made of a cocoanut-shell, which has a long cane stem. One who indulges slightly in the habit would not be termed a ḥashshash

any more than a moderate drinker in England would be termed a drunkard. The opprobrium attached to the term is much increased through its association with the Ḥashshashseyn

of the time of the Crusades, whom we know as the Assassins—the subjects of the ‘Sultan of the Castles and Fortresses,’ more commonly called ‘the old man of the mountain.’ They were said to indulge freely in hashsheesh when sent on some murderous errand by their chief. Rowdy or riotous people are often termed ‘Hashshasheen’ whether they be addicted to the drug or not.

Seeing an excitable crowd quite recently, in one of the principal squares of Cairo, I approached to see what was the matter. A brutal-looking man was struggling with a couple of policemen who were taking him off to jail, while others were placing on a stretcher a youth who was terribly hacked about his face and head. On inquiry I heard that the man in charge of the police was employed at the public slaughter-house, that he was given to hashsheesh, and that in a fit of madness he had just assaulted with his butcher’s knife the wounded youth. The term hashshash, which was freely used by the crowd, had a particularly gruesome sound on that occasion.

Loud and furious were the comments of Mahmood, and had he not been carrying my materials he would have joined in the struggle with the butcher.

As this took place just within the limits of the European quarter, it was fully reported in the foreign Cairo papers. The youth succumbed to his wounds, and the hashshash paid the death penalty.

I was on my way to the Khaleeg to look for a subject which had attracted me on a former visit, and before this canal had been filled in by the tramway company. A change for the better, possibly, from a hygienic point of view, and also as a means of communication; but a sad loss to the picturesque. Many historic buildings which backed on to the canal have been pulled down, and commonplace frontages will soon blot out all remembrance of them.