The Egyptians are not destitute of better diversions than those described in the preceding chapter: reciters of romances frequent the principal kahwehs (or coffee-shops) of Cairo and other towns, particularly on the evenings of religious festivals, and afford attractive and rational entertainments. The reciter generally seats himself upon a small stool on the mastab′ah, or raised seat, which is built against the front of the coffee-shop:^[491] some of his auditors occupy the rest of that seat; others arrange themselves upon the mastab′ahs of the houses on the opposite side of the narrow street; and the rest sit upon stools or benches made of palm-sticks; most of them with the pipe in hand; some sipping their coffee; and all highly amused, not only with the story, but also with the lively and dramatic manner of the narrator. The reciter receives a trifling sum of money from the keeper of the coffee-shop, for attracting customers: his hearers are not obliged to contribute anything for his remuneration: many of them give nothing, and few give more than five or ten faddahs.^[492]

The most numerous class of reciters is that of the persons called “Sho’ara” (in the singular “Shá’er,” which properly signifies a poet). They are also called “Aboo-Zeydeeyeh,” or “Aboo-Zeydees,” from the subject of their recitations, which is a romance entitled “The Life of Aboo-Zeyd” (“Seeret Aboo-Zeyd”). The number of these Sho’ara in Cairo is about fifty; and they recite nothing but the adventures related in the romance of Aboo-Zeyd.

This romance is said to have been founded upon events which happened in the middle of the third century of the Flight; and is believed to have been written not long after that period; but it was certainly composed at a much later time, unless it have been greatly altered in transcription. It is usually found in ten or more small quarto volumes. It is half prose and half poetry; half narrative and half dramatic. As a literary composition, it has little merit, at least in its present state; but as illustrative of the manners and customs of the Bedawees, it is not without value and interest. The heroes and heroines of the romance, who are mostly natives of Central Arabia and El-Yemen, but some of them of El-Gharb, or Northern Africa, which is called “the West,” with reference to Arabia, generally pour forth their most animated sentiments, their addresses and soliloquies, in verse. The verse is not measured, though it is the opinion of some of the learned in Cairo that it was originally conformed to the prescribed measures of poetry, and that it has been altered by copyists; still, when read, as it always is, almost entirely in the popular (not the literary) manner, it is pleasing in sound, as it also often is in matter. Almost every piece of poetry begins and ends with an invocation of blessings on the Prophet.

The Shá’er always commits his subject to memory; and recites without book. The poetry he chants; and after every verse he plays a few notes on a viol which has but a single chord, and which is called “the poet’s viol,” or “the Aboo-Zeydee viol;” from its only being used in these recitations. It has been described in a former chapter. The reciter generally has an attendant with another instrument of this kind, to accompany him. Sometimes a single note serves as a prelude and interlude. To convey some idea of the style of a Shá’er’s music, I insert a few notes of the commencement of a chant:—

Some of the reciters of Aboo-Zeyd are distinguished by the appellations of “Hiláleeyeh” (or Hilálees), “Zaghábeh,” or “Zughbeeyeh” (or Zughbees), and “Zináteeyeh” (or “Zinátees”), from their chiefly confining themselves to the narration of the exploits of heroes of the Hilálee, Zughbee, or Zinátee tribes, celebrated in this romance.

As a specimen of the tale of Aboo-Zeyd, I shall here offer an abstract of the principal contents of the first volume, which I have carefully read for this purpose.

Aboo-Zeyd, or, as he was first more generally called, Barakát, was an Arab of the tribe called Benee-Hilál, or El-Hiláleeyeh. Before his birth, his father, the Emeer Rizk (who was the son of Náïl, a paternal uncle of Sarhán, the king of the Benee-Hilál), had married ten wives, from whom, to his great grief, he had obtained but two children, both of them daughters, named Sheehah and ’Ateemeh, until one of his wives, the Emeereh Gellás, increased his distress by bearing him a son without arms or legs. Shortly before the birth of this son, the Emeer Rizk (having divorced, at different times, such of his wives as pleased him least, as he could not have more than four at one time, and having at last retained only three) married an eleventh wife, the Emeereh Khadra, daughter of Karda, the Shereef of Mekkeh. He was soon rejoiced to find that Khadra showed signs of becoming a mother; and, in the hope that the expected child would be a son, invited the Emeer Ghánim, chief of the tribe of Ez-Zaghábeh, or Ez-Zughbeeyeh, with a large company of his family and tribe, to come from their district and honour with their presence the festival which he hoped to have occasion to celebrate. These friends complied with his invitation, became his guests, and waited for the birth of the child.

Meanwhile, it happened that the Emeereh Khadra, walking with the Emeereh Shemmeh, a wife of King Sarhán, and a number of other females, saw a black bird attack and kill a numerous flock of birds of various kinds and hues, and, astonished at the sight, earnestly prayed God to give her a son like this bird, even though he should be black. Her prayer was answered: she gave birth to a black boy. The Emeer Rizk, though he could not believe this to be his own son, was reluctant to put away the mother, from the excessive love he bore her. He had only heard the women’s description of the child: he would not see it himself, nor allow any other man to see it, until the seventh day after its birth. For six days his guests were feasted; and on the seventh, or “yóm es-subooa,” a more sumptuous banquet was prepared; after which, according to custom, the child was brought before the guests. A female slave carried it upon a silver tray, and covered over with a handkerchief. When the guests, as usual in such cases, had given their nukoot (or contributions) of gold and silver coins, one of them lifted up the handkerchief, and saw that the child was as the women had represented it. The Emeer Rizk, who had stood outside the tent while this ceremony was performed, in great distress of mind, was now sharply upbraided by most of his friends for wishing to hide his supposed disgrace, and to retain an unchaste woman as his wife: he was very reluctantly compelled to put her away, that his tribe might not be held in dishonour on her account; and accordingly despatched her, with her child, under the conduct of a sheykh named Muneea, to return to her father’s house at Mekkeh. She departed thither, accompanied also by a number of slaves, her husband’s property, who determined to remain with her, being allowed to do so by the Emeer Rizk.

On the journey, the party pitched their tents in a valley; and here the Emeereh Khadra begged her conductor to allow her to remain; for she feared to go back, under such circumstances, to her father’s house. But the Emeer Fadl Ibn-Beysem, chief of the tribe of Ez-Zahlán, with a company of horsemen, chanced to fall in with her party during her conversation with the sheykh Muneea, and, having heard her story, determined to take her under his protection: returning to his encampment, he sent his wife, the Emeereh Laag El-Baheeyeh, to conduct her and the child thither, together with the slaves. The Emeer Fadl adopted her child as his own; brought him up with his own two sons; and treated him with the fondness of a father. The young Barakát soon gave promise of his becoming a hero: he killed his schoolmaster, by severe beating, for attempting to chastise one of his adoptive brothers; and became the terror of all his schoolfellows. His adoptive father procured another fikee for a schoolmaster; but Barakát’s presence frightened his schoolfellows from attending; and the fikee therefore instructed him at home. At the age of eleven years, he had acquired proficiency in all the sciences, human and divine, then studied in Arabia; including astrology, magic, alchemy, and a variety of other branches of knowledge.

Barakát now went, by the advice of the fikee, to ask a present of a horse from his adoptive father; who answered his “Good morning” by saying, “Good morning, my son, and dearer than my son.” Surprised at this expression, the youth went to his mother, and asked her if the Emeer Fadl were not really his father. She told him that this chief was his uncle; and that his father was dead: that he had been killed by a Hilálee Arab, called Rizk the son of Náïl. Becoming warmed and inspired by the remembrance of her wrongs, she then more fully related her case to her son in a series of verses. Of this piece of poetry I shall venture to insert a translation, made verse for verse, and with the same neglect of measure that is found in the original, which I also imitate in carrying on the same rhyme throughout the whole piece, in accordance with the common practice of Arab poets:—

Barakát, excited by this tale, became engrossed with the desire of slaying his own father, whom he was made to believe to be his father’s murderer.

His adoptive father gave him his best horse, and instructed him in all the arts of war, in the chase, and in every manly exercise. He early distinguished himself as a horseman, and excited the envy of many of the Arabs of the tribe into which he had been admitted, by his dexterity in the exercise of the “birgás” (a game exactly or nearly similar to what is now called that of the “gereed”), in which the persons engaged, mounted on horses, combated or pursued each other, throwing a palm-stick.^[496] He twice defeated plundering parties of the tribe of Teydemeh; and, on the first occasion, killed ’Atwán the son of Dághir, their chief. These Teydemeh Arabs applied, for succour, to Es-Saleedee, king of the city of Teydemeh. He recommended them to Gessár the son of Gásir, a chief of the Benee-Hemyer, who sent to demand, of the tribe of Ez-Zahlán, fifteen years’ arrears of tribute which the latter had been accustomed to pay to his tribe; and desired them to despatch to him, with this tribute, the slave Barakát (for he believed him to be a slave), a prisoner in bonds, to be put to death. Barakát wrote a reply, in the name of the Emeer Fadl, promising compliance. Having a slave who much resembled him, and who was nearly of the same age, he bound him on the back of a camel, and, with him and the Emeer Fadl and his tribe, went to meet Gessár and his party, and the Teydemeh Arabs. Fadl presented the slave, as Barakát, to Gessár; who, pleased at having his orders apparently obeyed, feasted the tribe of Ez-Zahlán: but Barakát remained on horseback, and refused to eat of the food of his enemies, as, if he did, the laws of hospitality would prevent his executing a plot which he had framed. Gessár observed him; and, asking the Emeer Fadl who he was, received the answer that he was a mad slave, named Mes’ood. Having drawn Gessár from his party, Barakát discovered himself to him, challenged, fought, and killed him, and took his tent: he pardoned the rest of the hostile party; but imposed upon them the tribute which the Zahlán Arabs had formerly paid them. Henceforth he had the name of Mes’ood added to that which he had before borne. Again and again he defeated the hostile attempts of the Benee-Hemyer to recover their independence, and acquired the highest renown, not only in the eyes of the Emeer Fadl and the whole tribe of Ez-Zahlán, of whom he was made the chief, but also among all the neighbouring tribes.

We must now return to the Emeer Rizk, and his tribe.—Soon after the departure of his wife Khadra he retired from his tribe, in disgust at the treatment which he received on account of his supposed disgrace, and in grief for his loss. With a single slave, he took up his abode in a tent of black goats’ hair, one of those in which the tenders of his camels used to live, by the spring where his wife had seen the combat of the birds. Not long after this event, the Benee-Hilál were afflicted by a dreadful drought, which lasted so long that they were reduced to the utmost distress. Under these circumstances, the greater number of them were induced, with their king Sarhán, to go to the country of the tribe of Ez-Zahlán, for sustenance; but the Ga’áfireh, and some minor tribes of the Benee-Hilál, joined, and remained with, the Emeer Rizk, who had formerly been their commander. Sarhán and his party were attacked and defeated by Barakát on their arrival in the territory of the Zahlán Arabs; but on their abject submission were suffered by him to remain there. They however cherished an inveterate hatred to the tribe of Ez-Zahlán, who had before paid them tribute; and Sarhán was persuaded to send a messenger to the Emeer Rizk, begging him to come and endeavour to deliver them from their humiliating state. Rizk obeyed the summons. On his way to the territory of the Zahlán Arabs, he was almost convinced, by the messenger who had come to conduct him, that Barakát was his son; but was at a loss to know why he was called by this name, as he himself had named him Aboo-Zeyd. Arriving at the place of his destination, he challenged Barakát. The father went forth to combat the son: the former not certain that his opponent was his son; and the latter having no idea that he was about to lift his hand against his father; but thinking that his adversary was his father’s murderer. The Emeer Rizk found occasion to put off the engagement from day to day: at last, being no longer able to do this, he suffered it to commence: his son prevailed: he unhorsed him, and would have put him to death had he not been charged to refrain from doing this by his mother. The secret of Barakát’s parentage was now divulged to him by the Emeereh Khadra; and the chiefs of the Benee-Hilál were compelled to acknowledge him as the legitimate and worthy son of the Emeer Rizk, and to implore his pardon for the injuries which he and his mother had sustained from them. This boon, the Emeer Aboo-Zeyd Barakát generously granted; and he thus added to the joy which the Emeer Rizk derived from the recovery of his favourite wife, and his son.

The subsequent adventures related in the romance of Aboo Zeyd are numerous and complicated. The most popular portion of the work is the account of a “riyádeh,” or expedition in search of pasture; in which Aboo-Zeyd, with three of his nephews, in the disguise of Shá’ers, himself acting as their servant, are described as journeying through northern Africa, and signalizing themselves by many surprising exploits with the Arab tribe of Ez-Zináteeyeh.