As he walks along he calls out sometimes, “Moie, moie!” but more frequently some Arabic words that mean, “O, ye thirsty! O, ye thirsty!” and occasionally he adds something about the delights of a cup of cool, delicious water, and sounds the praises of the special lot that he carries.
I was told by persons who understand the language, that there is much poetry in its every-day use, and the water carrier, as I have just explained, is poetical in his appeals, and so are the street peddlers of all grades. The venders of vegetables, of candy, of bread, and other edibles do not, as a general thing, name the articles they have for sale, but they address appeals to the hungry, allude to the tortures of hunger, and the pleasure of satisfying it. The seller of shoes appeals to the unshod, and beseeches them to go barefoot no longer. The seller of tobacco calls to those who smoke and love the fragrant Latakiah, or the invigorating Koranny. “O, ye man,” “O, ye woman,” “O, ye old man,” is shouted by your donkey driver as he guides you through the crowded streets, and he changes it to “O, ye people,” when the number is so great that he cannot afford to address them in detail.
"Backsheesh, O, Howadji,” (a present, O, gentlemen), is the appeal of the beggar to the passing stranger. The dealer in fresh clover for donkeys’ food chants, “From green fields I bring the odors of fresh verdure,” and the squinting merchants in the Perfume Bazaar vaunt the praises of their wares in words that fill the Moslem mind with thoughts of Paradise, and bear it away from prosaic thoughts and duties of every-day life.
Somebody has said that to find a Princess Scheherazade, you have only to scratch the back of your Cairene donkey boy, and with a slight encouragement he will begin to talk in the strain of the Arabian Nights. I found it so to some extent in my acquaintance with the Egyptian capital. Most of the donkey drivers that frequent the fronts of the hotels can speak English, and some of them quite well. They are as a class bright and intelligent, and can be relied upon for information as to the customs of the people. Their knowledge of localities is sufficient for all the purposes for which a guide is usually employed, and as soon as our party, in its collective capacity, were through with sight-seeing, we fell back upon the donkey boys, and dismissed our professional guide.
Whether the Cairenes indulge to-day in stories like that of the Enchanted Horse, and Sinbad the Sailor, I am unable to say, but in the matter of scandal they are quite up to the Occidental mark. One of the donkey boys at the hotel told me a variety of incidents connected with the harems, and some of them are of a very apochryphal character.
There is one peculiarity of the Arab that a stranger will not be long in detecting, and that is his readiness to answer each and every question you may put to him. Ask him something, and if he knows the answer he will generally give it; if he does not know, he will reply with anything that his imagination suggests, and he does it as gravely as though he were expounding a text of the Koran.
One day, I asked a donkey boy how much he would ask to take me to the Astor House.
“Two shillin’,” was the prompt reply.
He hadn’t the remotest idea where it was, but did not hesitate a moment to undertake to find it. So I asked him where it was.
“I savez, I savez; on the Esebekiah,” he replied, and pushed his donkey around for me to enter the saddle Other boys came up, and I said I wished to go the Astor House and Tammany Hall.
In half a minute the whole crowd was vociferating, and the price fell from two shillings to two francs, and then to one shilling. I was obliged to end the matter by hiring a donkey and going to the citadel. Every driver was ready to take me to the places I mentioned, and was confident he could find them.
The Arabs have a story which they tell, to account for their tendency to falsehood.
They say that His Satanic Majesty once came on earth with nine bags full of lies. He scattered the contents of one bag in Europe, and then started for Asia, Africa, and the Oriental Isles.
He arrived at Alexandria in the evening, and was to continue his work next day, but during the night some wicked Arabs stole the other eight bags, and distributed the contents among their people.
Cairo is not so rich in mosques as Constantinople, but there are several, of no small importance.
The finest of these is that commonly known as Sultan Hassan; it stands just below the citadel, and is a prominent feature in the view of the city. The Cairenes are justly proud of it, and have a story that the King cut off the hand of the architect, to make sure that he would not repeat his work.
But as this little incident has had its run in all countries and ages, we may conclude that the King did nothing of the sort. It is much more likely that he compelled the architect to wait for his pay, and finally accept fifty cents on the dollar.
The stones used for constructing this mosque, came from the great Pyramid; some of them were recut, but the greater part are in their original shape. The interior consists of a dome, resting on four grand arches, the eastern one having a span of sixty-five and a half feet. The dome is of wood, and, like many other domes in Cairo, is not kept in good repair.
More About the Bazaars—How They Sell Goods in Cairo—Furniture, Fleas, and Filth—Trading in Pipe Stems and Coffee Pots—A Queer Collection of Bric-a-Brac—Driving Close Bargains—A Specimen of Yankee Shrewdness—A Miniature Blacksmith Shop—A Cloud of Perfumes—Gems, Guns, and Damascus Blades—An Arabian Auction—At the Egyptian Opera—The Dancing Girls of Cairo—The Ladies from the Harem—A Scanty Costume—The Ballet of “The Prodigal Son”—The Ladies of the Opera and Their Life.
ONE of the first objects of interest at Cairo is the great centre of trade, known as the bazaars. They are not so compactly arranged as the bazaars of Damascus, or of Constantinople, and in some features they are inferior to those of either of the above cities; but they are nevertheless very interesting, and never fail to charm the visitor.
Suppose you are in the newly added quarter of Cairo—say at the French post-office—and wish to visit the bazaars. You pass along a broad and macadamized street, with French shops on one side and a row of unfinished buildings on the other, that have a Parisian appearance. With two or three turnings in streets of this sort, you arrive at the Mooskee, a broad street—broad for the Orient—leading into the native portion of Cairo.
The Mooskee was once a sort of narrow lane, but was widened by one of the former Pashas, not without opposition on the part of the Moslems. Here the rows of foreign shops continue; they are French, Greek, Italian, English, and German, arranged without any regard to nationalities. At first, they are all foreign; as you advance, you see here and there a shop, attended by a native; and as you go on and on, the natives increase in numbers, and the foreigners decrease. At first the shops have windows and doors, and counters, like those in London or Paris, but as you go on, you find here and there one on the plan of the Orient, the front entirely open, and the goods displayed from within to a customer standing in the street.
Here is a niche where was once a window; it has been walled up, and the stones which close it are about eighteen inches inside the line.
This space would be of no use in the West, but here in the East it has been utilized, and we find a couple of cobblers squatted there, with their benches of tools in front of them. Very small are these benches, and as for the tools, they are not numerous. Further on we see open-fronted shops, tended by foreigners, and close-fronted shops tended by natives; then we come to a section where all the shops are open, and natives are more and more numerous; finally, by turning,—we may go to the right or left, as we choose,—under the shadow of a decaying mosque, we enter the bazaars, and the habits and costumes of the Orientais rise around us.
In many parts of the Mooskee there is a roof thrown quite across the street, a roof consisting mainly of timbers, with openings through which the light can stream and the rain can fall. Some of the Oriental cities have the streets covered, and there are openings here and there, to admit the light. Cairo is not covered, but her streets are so narrow, and the house-tops project so far, that in many places the streets are rather sombre, even at mid-day. Everywhere you see little balconies and projecting windows, the latter covered with wooden grills or lattices, through which women can see without being seen; however brightly the lights of the harem may burn within, they cannot be observed from without. The merchants in the shops find this dimness to their advantage, as it gives to some of their wares the appearance of a fineness which they do not possess.
Turning to the left out of the Mooskee, we entered the bazaar of Khan-Haleel, so named after a Khan, which was built about’ six hundred years ago, and is still standing without much alteration.
We entered the Khan and found a square court yard surrounded by rooms opening upon it, where the merchants who come from other cities display their wares and sleep at night.
The Khan, or caravansary, is of less consequence now than formerly, throughout the parts of the East that have been invaded by railways; in Aleppo, Bagdad and other inland places, its character is still retained. A caravan arrives in a city, and a merchant belonging to it seeks a caravansary, hires a room and displays his goods to whoever wishes to buy. He pays a small rental and takes his meals where he likes; in the smaller towns the master of the Khan will supply him with food, but not so in the large cities. The furniture of the Khan consists generally of matting and fleas in about equal portions; sometimes there is no matting, but the fleas are sure to be on hand, and on the entire body as well. Orientals do not mind them, and I am half inclined to believe that they would be unhappy without those nimble little attendants.
The bazaars in the immediate vicinity of the Khan Haleel are mainly devoted to the sale of pipe stems, coffee pots, and various odds and ends of nearly everything. You can buy tobacco, old coins, boots, and jewelry; and there are several shops whose native owners are devoted to the sale of European nick-nacks.
Further on, you come to the jewelry bazaar; we entered it by a low door, which had a flooring of soft mud, that induced some very careful walking and brought one of our party to temporary grief.
The jewelry bazaar is a curious place. The street is about six feet wide, in some places not over five, and you stand in the street or sit on the front edge of the shop while making your bargains. Not more than two or three persons should go there together; we were six, and we blocked up the whole way, so that it was difficult for us to see anything and for others to get past. The shops were from four to eight feet square, and the stock was partially displayed in a little show-case a foot square and the same in height, and partially kept in a safe in a rear corner. Generally when we examined the articles in the case, the merchant, who was squatted near it, opened his safe and took out something from it. The diminutive extent of the shop enabled him to reach safe, show-case, and everything else, without leaving the place where he was seated. In most cases, when he was obliged to move about, he did it without rising. He hopped along very much as a tame seal moves about in a menagerie.
The selection of jewelry is not large. It consists of ear-drops, brooches and bracelets of fine filigree work, that nearly always includes a crescent, with a few stars of gold or little drops of real or imitation turquoise. Some of the sets are so arranged, that the necklace and brooch form one piece, that can be taken apart so that the necklace will form a pair of bracelets and leave the brooch to be worn separately. Some are of gold, some of silver, and some of silver gilded, and the sets are generally quite cheap in comparison with the prices of jewelry in America and England.
You must bargain a great deal, and if you pay anything like the price asked at first, you are sure to be cheated. Never offer more than half what they ask, and you will do better not to offer more than a third to start with; the merchant will decline at first; then he will fall slowly, and after a time he will be about half way between your first offer and his. You can then come up a little, and if your offer is at all reasonable, he will close with, you, though frequently not till after you have walked away.
To show what can be done by judicious bargaining, let me cite an instance.
One of our party admired a pair of ear-drops, and asked the price.
“Twenty francs,” was the reply.
Buyer declined to be a buyer at that figure, but ventured to offer five francs. The merchant put the jewelry into his box and shook his head. Then our party prepared to leave, and the merchant fell to fifteen francs. Buyer rose to six francs, and after a great deal of haggling, they met at seven francs and a half. In another instance, a trade was made at ten francs for something for which thirty francs had been demanded, and frequently half, or more than half the first price, was taken off to make a trade. An Oriental merchant expects you to bargain for his goods, and is quite surprised if you accept his offer at starting; and if you do it, you can be certain that you have deceived, yourself.
In many of the shops the makers of jewelry were at work; of course we were interested in seeing them. The man sat or squatted on the floor, in front of a small anvil; behind him was a little furnace, with a charcoal fire, which was kept alive by a bellows, worked by a boy or by the foot of the man. The bellows was in keeping with the rest of the equipment of the place—sometimes it was a bag of goatskin, and sometimes it had the shape, and was about the size of a Chinese lantern. The tools consisted of hammers and pinchers, and the men showed great dexterity in working them. Gold and silver are made to take curious shapes in the hands of these fabricants, and some of their performances appeared akin to magic. They had little turning lathes in some of the shops, and occasionally a man would hold with his toe the article which he was endeavoring to put into shape the size of a small egg; there is no saucer, but in its place there is a little socket of the general shape of a flower vase, and into this the cup fits very neatly. They must wear out, or become lost, at a remarkably rapid rate to judge by the quantities that were offered for sale.
The jewelry bazaar has many windings, and, somewhat to our surprise, we came out after many crooks and-turns by a passage-way, only a few feet from where we had entered.
Brass pans and pots for cooking purposes are in demand, and so are plates, on which to serve up sweetmeats. In some of the Not far away from the jewelers is the bazaar of the tinsmiths and workers in brass. Their shops are small, like all shops in the Orient, and their furnaces were much on the same style as those of the workers in gold and silver.
They were hammering brass and tin into a variety of shapes, the most common article being the pots for making coffee, and the little stands that hold the cups. They bring coffee to you in the Orient in a cup about shops they tried to sell us some very ancient plates of Saracenic manufacture, and the rapidity with which they reduced their figures, led me to suspect that the articles were skilful imitations, rather than genuine. The brass and tin bazaars are quite extensive, and the trade in these articles is evidently large.
Constantly, on our way, we were beset by men, who wanted to guide us and act as intermediaries in trade. These fellows hang around the bazaars and make a living in two ways; they get a fee from the stranger and a commission from the merchant, and the commission is generally the most important of the two. It makes little difference whether you take them as interpreters, or hire a dragoman from the hotel; both will have a commission, and sometimes the dragoman is worse than the regular frequenter of the bazaars. After a little practice, and by picking up the numerals and a few other words of Arabic, I was able to do my own shopping, without the intercession of a guide, and found I could get along much better when alone. Many of the merchants understand the French or Italian numerals, or what is more frequently, a combination of the two; with a lingual hash, composed of Arabic, French, and Italian, one can manage to trade very fairly.
You can barter leisurely, or you can go rapidly through many bazaars. You can go in the Hamzowce, or silk and cloth bazaar, where silks, cloths, and similar goods are sold, mostly of European manufacture; but as the dealers are all Christians and scoundrels, and the articles they sell are familiar to us, the place is not particularly interesting.
You can go into the Terbeeah, or perfume bazaar; and it is here that you buy, or think you buy, the famous “otto of rose.”
I spent the whole of one morning, bargaining for some of it, and at last bought half a dozen bottles, only to be told when I reached the hotel, that I had been cheated in the price. There is a wonderful odor of sandal wood and otto of rose, and a dozen other things in this bazaar, and the rows of bottles and jars behind the turbaned and squatting dealers, form a picture that: is by no means unpleasant. Strips of gilded paper are hung in front of these bazaars, as a sign of the articles sold within. I was unable to ascertain the meaning of them, and concluded that they were arbitrary in their character, like the striped poles that we place in front of a barber’s shop. Here, as everywhere else, you must haggle a good deal about the price, and keep a sharp eye, to see that you get the article you have bought.
There are different localities for different goods. In one bazaar you find cotton and silk stuffs, and in another they have garments made of the same material. In one there are shoes and slippers, in another saddles, and in another flags and tents. Here you find silk and gold cord and lace, and there you can discover stores of precious stones. Here are sugar, almonds, and dried fruit, and there are tobacco and coffee. Here is the market for guns, swords, and arms of various kinds, and there is the market for fowls and vegetables. In the arms bazaar you may find a wilderness of old weapons, and not unlikely you may purchase a sword that flashed in the days of Haroun-al-Rasheed, and helped to spread the faith of Mohammed through the sleepy and careless East.
Among the dealers in gems, you will find diamonds and turquoises in great number, and they will be drawn one by one from the pocket of the merchant and placed in a little box which he holds in his hand. If you like, you may visit the bazaar where old clothes are sold, and if you have a fancy for garments that have done duty on Moslem backs, your desires can be met with the utmost ease. And don’t fail to come to the bazaars on Mondays and Thursdays, and witness the sale of goods at auction. It is not like an American auction, where the dealer stands in one place and has the buyers clustering round him. In this case, the auctioneers go through the market, carrying the goods and calling out the prices that have been offered. This mode of selling gives a fine opportunity for fraud, and it is quite likely that a great deal of it is practised.
Though pretty well tired out when through with the bazaars, we took a turn at the opera house in the evening. I have seen opera and ballet in pretty nearly every city where they make a point of giving them finely, and before coming here, I believed I had seen the very best in existence. The opera house at Cairo is not a large one, but it is quite sufficient for the wants of the present population of theatre-goers. The seats and boxes are well arranged, and I purposely went to various localities during’ the performance, and found I could hear about equally well everywhere. There is a strong company, especially rich in tenor* and soprano voices It was here that I heard the opera peculiar to Cairo, under the name of Aida. Aida was written by Verdi, to the Khedive’s special orders; the scene is laid in Egypt, during the period of the greatest power of the Pharaohs, and the special locations are at Memphis and Thebes. The piece was literally put on the stage without regard to expense; the costumes and scenery were made with the utmost care and attention to details, and in every respect they conform to the period represented. Thus, in the scenery, the temples and the services in them are restored, the actors are dressed as were the ancient Egyptians, and the dialogue is made to conform to the manners and customs of the time. As you sit in the parquette, or in a comfortable box, you are carried back four thousand years to the days when Isis and Osiris were the divinities of the land.
Careful studies were made of the sculptures and paintings on the walls of the temples and tombs of Upper Egypt, so as to secure fidelity in all the details. The rehearsals had evidently been numerous and thorough; I never heard in London or St. Petersburg, Paris or Vienna, Milan or Naples, an opera better rendered, while I have heard a great many whose rendition was far behind it in point of excellence. Aida is popular with the resident opera goers, and if a stranger wishes to see a Cairene audience at its very best, he should attend one of the representations of this opera. The boxes and parquette will be well filled, and he may possibly get a view of the solid form and intelligent face of the Khedive. Opposite the vice-regal box there are several boxes reserved for the ladies of the harem; there is a screen of wire-gauze in front of them, so that the fair occupants can see, without being seen.
There is a ballet called the “Prodigal Son,” with the scene laid in Egypt and with the costumes of the Pharaonic days. It rivals Aida in magnificence, and is generally sure of a good audience or rather vidience as, following the Oriental and European custom, it is all in pantomime, with never a spoken word.
The ballet troupe is quite large, and the action of the piece goes on incessantly for about an hour and a quarter. The costumes and scenery are appropriate,—the former scanty, as with the ballet everywhere, and the latter rich and typical of the place and time represented. The cost of maintaining this troupe must be great, and evidently the ladies composing it are well paid, as they drive daily in fine carriages on the Shoobra road, and dress like countesses, who have fortunes in their own right.
There is a small theatre opposite the opera house, where they give French comedy and light operas, three or four times a week, and give them very well. The opera and ballet are very popular with the ladies of the Khedive’s harem; they prefer the music and dancing of the Occident to that of the Orient, just as they prefer the fashions of Paris to those of Bagdad and Khiva.
A “Syce” what is he?—A Man with a Queer Dress and Large Calves—A Gorgeous Turnout—An Escort of Eunuchs—Veiled Beauties—A Flirtation and its Consequences—The Tale of a Dropped Handkerchief—The Donkey as a National Beast—A Tricky Brute and an Agile Driver—An Upset in the Mud—Astonishing the Natives—A Specimen of Arabic Wit—Going to the Races—The Grand Stand—A Dromedary Race—An Aristocratic Camel—The Arrival of the Khedive—Starting Up the Dromedaries—Cutting an Empress.
A STRANGER is impressed during his first days in Cairo with the spectacle of runners in front of carriages to warn people to get out of the way. These fellows have a picturesque dress and muscular legs, and their duty is to clear the way, by keeping a few yards in advance and warning people that a carriage is coming. An appendage of this sort is called a syce, and formerly it was necessary that he should be a native born Egyptian, but at present a Nubian may aspire to the position, and it is not unusual to see syces of the complexion of charcoal in front of elegant carriages. Public fiacres and ordinary private carriages have each but a single syce, but the carriages of the Khedive and all official turnouts must have a pair of syces running side by side.
The syce carries a stick, which he holds perpendicularly in the air. As he goes along he warns people by his shouts; it occasionally happens that a crowd of common Arabs will be in the way with their donkeys, and if they do not move at the vocal admonition, the stick is brought into use with no savor of mildness. The most gorgeous turnouts in Cairo were, of course, those belonging to the reigning family, and used on state occasions. The Khedive ordinarily rides with very little display; he has a two-horse carriage, open or closed according to the weather or other circumstances, two syces in front and two outriders or household guards behind him.
The carriages of the harem are quite as gorgeous as his, and they have the additional escort of one or two eunuchs, sometimes on horseback, and at others seated on the box with the driver. Sometimes the blinds are drawn, and again they are open, but in either case the face of the fair occupant cannot be seen, as it is invariably covered with a veil.
The eyes only are visible and they are generally pretty, I think I may say invariably so, and have that soft, melting languor for which the Orient is famous. Concealment has its advantages here as elsewhere; what we can see is rarely as beautiful as what we do not see. The unattainable is always of more value than what is within our reach. Possibly all the women of the harem are not beautiful, but I had the word of a lady who has been in the sacred enclosure, that there are faces there whose beauty is rarely equalled in the Occident, and there was one that roused my informant to a pitch of enthusiasm more appropriate for a young and ardent man.
Some of these carriages of the harem have been associated with scandals of a mediocre character. I was told of one whose occupant used to drop her veil to a dashing young officer when promenading on the Shoobra Road, and on one occasion let fall an embroidered and perfumed handkerchief, which he picked up and retained.
As the story goes, he was imprudent enough to speak of the adventure and to show the trophy, and one day he was told his presence was no longer needed in the Egyptian army, but that his resignation would be accepted. How much truth there is in the story I cannot say, I am sure; I was not present; never saw officer or handkerchief to my knowledge, and neither have I ever seen the veiled beauty. But who among us would have neglected to peep at her face if he had the opportunity?
The beast par excellence of Egypt is the donkey; he ought to have a place on the national coat-of-arms, as much so as the llama has on that of Peru. The horses of Egypt are magnificent, some of pure Arabian, and some of a cross between English and Arabian stock, and are famous for their speed and beauty. But they are a luxury that not everybody can afford, as their support requires a constant outlay, not to speak of the first cost of the property. But the donkey is universal, and everybody can have one, unless he is the poorest of the poor.
At every hotel door there are groups of them ready saddled at all hours of the day, and you can hire them cheaply. If you can make a bargain in advance you can hire a donkey at three or four francs a day, inclusive of the boy, to drive him, though the latter generally looks for backsheesh in addition to the price of the beast and saddle. I have hired donkeys frequently for half
a franc an hour, though the hotel keepers tell you that a franc an hour is the proper fare.
Most of the excursions in and around Cairo must be made on these animals, and even in many places where you can take a carriage the donkey is preferable. You can ride in the narrow lanes and among the bazaars, or you can go into the open country at a gallop, as though pursued by a wolf, or a guilty conscience. No matter how fast you go, the boy will keep up with you, and he never seems to be out of breath. If you want to go slowly he does not understand you, and will continue to cluck and strike the beast at the very moment you are expostulating with him.
One day I took a donkey for an afternoon ride to old Cairo, and explained to the boy that I was in no hurry, and wished to go gently. “I understand,” he said, and as we started he hit the donkey a violent blow, that sent him off on a gallop.
Two or three times I expostulated, and finally I threatened to thrash him with my cane if he struck the donkey again without orders.
“I understand,” he said, “no strike donkey no more,” and we were off again.
Within two minutes he struck the animal. The promised thrashing was administered, and even that was not enough to make the boy mindful of what I wanted, and several times he involuntarily hurried the animal ahead. It was the force of habit, which to him was perfectly uncontrollable.
The donkey is a patient beast; he never kicks or runs away, never takes fright, never asks for backsheesh, and he can bear a burden that seems out of all proportion to his size. He does not get drunk or stay away from home by circumstances which he cannot control, and he can be boarded and lodged at a very cheap rate. His food consists of beans and chopped straw, with an occasional bonne bouche of fresh cut grass, of which you see great loads coming daily into the city on the backs of camels and donkeys.
The pace of the donkey is a walk, an amble, or a gallop according to circumstances, and at whatever speed he is going he is generally as easy as a cradle. The natives ride without stirrups, owing to the donkey’s tendency to stumble; he does not fall very often, but you never know when he will go down in a heap under you, and he is most likely to do this when at full speed, the very time when you least relish this sort of business.
When I reached Cairo I was not up to the dodge of riding without my feet in the stirrups, but I soon concluded that I had better learn. One afternoon I had a donkey that was very good, from a progressive point of view. There was a party of us, and we went at a gallop, and my beast was ahead most of the time. Suddenly he went down, very much as a wet towel falls on the floor when you drop it from your hand, and I went down like another wet towel when it is not dropped but flung into a corner.
Had my feet been out of the stirrups they would have touched the ground as I fell, and I should have been standing erect and dignified, and could have contemplated my donkey in a heap as Xerxes contemplated the remains of his fleet at Salamis. But I was comfortably fixed in the stirrups, and so I went forward and turned about eleven-sixteenths of a somersault before I settled into a sprawling position on and in the sand, to the great delight of the multitude who are never happier than when seeing a stranger make an ass of himself. I got up and found myself uninjured, though I presented the appearance of having been used as a street sweeping machine.
You may think this is drawing the donkey business to a considerable length, but you wouldn’t think so if you knew what a prominent place the animal has in the life and locomotion of modern Egypt. But through fear of wearying you, I will stop now; only let me tell you of the wit of one of the drivers.
One day I hired a donkey for a franc to make a journey for which the driver demanded three francs at the outset. When the bargain was concluded we started, but the beast was very slow, and I said to the driver that his steed was not good.
“Yes, donkey good,” was his reply. “Give donkey three francs, he good donkey; he no good for one franc.”
Soon after my arrival we had the pleasure of attending the horse races and noticing some of the peculiarities of the country.
The track for the Cairo races is two or three miles out of the city, on a large plain to the right of the Abooseer Road.
We left our donkeys in charge of their drivers, and bought tickets for the Grand Stand. The spectators were a mixed lot of natives and Europeans, nearly all the former being in European dress, with the exception of the fez or red cap, which covers the head at all times, whether in doors or out. A good many eunuchs were there and mingled freely with the crowd in and around the stand. They were nearly all tall—some of them unusually long in the legs—were clad a la European, and were rather gorgeous in the matter of watch chain. One who stood near me had a double length vest chain, a fob chain, and a chain around his neck. If there had been any other way of wearing a chain I presume he would have adopted that also.
Many of these neutral gentlemen were active in the discussion of the races; some of them made considerable wagers, and one of them, taller and rather older than the rest, appeared to exercise considerable authority over the jockeys, and superintended their mounting and weighing. The jockeys were of all colors and nationalities; there were English, French, and Italian jockeys; and there were Arab, Egyptian, and Nubian jockeys. There was comparatively little betting over the result, and quite an absence of the yelling and hooting heard at all races in England and at some in America.
Just before the commencement of the races, a dozen carriages came upon the ground, bringing the ladies of the harem. A separate space was assigned to them; in this space the carriages were driven and a rope was drawn around, and guards were stationed to keep out intruders.
The ladies remained all the time in their carriages, and as they were closely veiled and the blinds of the carriages were partially closed, nobody got a peep at them. It is quite an innovation for them to come to the races at all; the seclusion of the women of the Orient is so great that a man would usually be as likely to think of taking his dog to see an entertainment as of taking his wives, or any one of them. I believe the day is not far distant when the ladies of Egypt will discard the veil and go with uncovered faces like their Occidental sisters. The Khedive has done much in the way of assimilating his people with those of Europe, and he will do more as time goes on.
On the second day the affair opened with a race of dromedaries. Four of these animals were entered, but only three put in an appearance. They were not beautiful beasts; I don’t believe one of them, in his wildest moments, ever imagines that he is handsome, and he ought not to do so if he sets himself down to tame deliberation. The dromedary is a sort of fine edition of the camel; he bears the same relation to a camel that a setter or terrier bears to that “yaller” dog of America. He kneels to be | mounted, and he starts off at a swinging pace, arching his neck rather gracefully, and not appearing to be in a hurry.
The saddle for racing is a sort of hollow dish, in which the rider sits. He does not straddle the beast as we would mount a horse, but he sits in this trough, or dish, and crosses his legs in front of him. His place is not an uncomfortable one, except that it is pretty high in the air and a fall from it would be no joke. Since I saw that race I have done some camel travelling, and have my opinions, but of that I will speak by and by.
These three dromedaries started off very well at the word of command, and went around the track at the rate of twelve miles an hour, though they did not appear to be doing half as much.
The dromedary race did not begin until after the arrival of the Khedive, who came in a carriage with his sons and some of his ministers, and was accompanied by a dozen or so of riders, and there was a good deal of bowing and hat lifting, but there were no cheers. Cheering after the Western plan does not seem to be in vogue in Egypt, and certainly it would not take well with the dignified demeanor of the Orient.
The Khedive acknowledged the compliment by a bow to the right and the left as he entered the grounds, and the carriage moved rapidly to the stand set apart for him and his friends. On the stand he mingled unceremoniously with the rest of the party. Among them there was one lady, the Duchess of Parma, to whom he was courteously polite. Quite a contrast, this, I thought to the conduct of the Sultan, whom I saw in 1867, at Paris, rudely walk past the Empress without offering his arm or even speaking to her. She was a woman and an Infidel Christian; no one could expect the commander of the Faithful to be polite to her.
There are different ways of regarding the subject from our standpoint; we think that Mohammedanism degrades woman below her proper level, by secluding her and by treating her not as a companion of man, but as a thing for his amusement, or for the perpetuation of the human race, as the soil is made to perpetuate the fruits of the earth. And the Mohammedan looking at us thinks that we raise women above their proper level and allow them too much part in our affairs. But the Western theory is yearly gaining more adherents, and the position of woman is yearly becoming more exalted. And the enlightened ruler of Egypt is the first Mohammedan Prince or King who has ventured to show in public a feeling of respect toward the gentler and prettier half of humanity.