CHAPTER LII—WOMEN AMONG THE MOHAMMEDANS—LIFE IN THE HAREM.
Polygamy Among the Turks and Arabs—A Full-Stocked Harem—Unveiling the Women—Romantic Adventure—A Brief Flirtation—The “Light of the Harem”—Love at First Sight—How Egyptian Women Dress—Some Hints to the Ladies—Wearing Trowsers—Robes, Caftans, and Peaked Shoes—Rainbow Colors—How they Dress their Hair—Crowned with Coins—A Walking Jewelry Shop—The Pretty Egyptienne Orange Girl—Street Costume—Paris Fashions in the Khedive’s Ilarem—Beauties Riding Donkeys Man Fashion—How they Go Shopping—Animated Bales of Dry Goods—Black Eyes in a Bundle of Silks—Marriage Brokers—How they Dispose of their Daughters in the East—A Turkish Courtship—A Donkey Driver Gives an Opinion—The Wedding and the Honeymoon—Divorces in Egypt—An Easy Process—Many-Wived Men.
THE Mohammedan religion allows four wives to each masculine believer, but there is no limit to his number of brevet or spiritual wives. Twenty-five years ago every well-to-do Turk considered it necessary for him to have the legal complement in the matrimonial line, and he was not up to the social high water mark unless he had a well-stocked harem. But the West and its customs have invaded domestic, as they have invaded commercial life Many respectable Turks have adopted monogamous habits, and live happily with one wife. True, they may have a liberal number of slaves in their harems, and these slaves may be pretty and attractive to an extent not approved by the lady of the house.
But the fact that monogamy is endurable, and has no social stigma attached to it, shows to what an extent the East has been influenced by western ideas. All Oriental women must go veiled in public, but it is observable that the veil is thinner than of old, and a woman of the upper classes may now go abroad with perfect propriety, wearing a veil so diaphanous that the features are clearly discernible through it.
Here is a little story—you may call it a confession if you like, but please consider it confidential.
One afternoon two of us—my companion was a handsome young man—were taking a stroll in one of these Oriental cities, and came upon a blockade of vehicles, equestrians, donkeys, and pedestrians, just as we might happen upon a blockade in Broadway or Fourteenth street. There was a gay carriage, with a gorgeous driver managing a pair of spirited horses, and in the carriage were two richly-dressed and veiled ladies. A heavy and rather stupid looking eunuch was on the box by the driver’s side, and both he and the driver had their attention diverted by the blockade. We edged up to the carriage under pretence of dodging a passing camel, and, rude foreigners that we were, peered inside.
Through the faint gauze I could see that both women were pretty. I said so in French to my companion; the ladies laughed and one of them made an inclination of her head toward the black fellow on the box. I nodded to indicate that he was not looking, and when satisfied that all was right, she quickly raised her veil and showed us a face as pretty as any we had seen for many weeks. We had only a momentary glance, but it was enough to photograph that pretty face on our memories.
There was a clear, transparent skin, finely-cut features of true Circassian type; there were rounded cheeks, eyes of melting softness, and eye-brows that slightly pencilled, gave the eye a fullness it would not have otherwise possessed. She smiled as she raised her veil, and the smile produced the most exquisite dimple and revealed a set of teeth that a belle of London or New York might have envied.
“Bien merci, Madame,” said I, in a low tone; “Comme vous êtes belle?”
She smiled again and nodded as she dropped her veil. Just then the colored gentleman on the box caught sight of us, and shouted “Empshy!” in no pleasing voice. Fearing to bring trouble upon the fair lady who was destined to be the subject of our thoughts and dreams until another pretty face should come in our way, we moved off and left the carriage to emerge from the blockade.
But we looked back once and caught the flutter of a handkerchief, and a glimpse of the delicate hand that held it.
Is not the East becoming civilized when such an incident as this is possible? No fashionable girl in American society could show more readiness for a flirtation with a stranger than did that pretty Orientale.
While in Egypt I received a letter from an American lady, in which I was thus commanded:
“How do the Egyptian women dress? I want to know all; and if you don’t tell me, you shall never be forgiven.”
To hear, under such circumstances, is to obey.
Before receiving that letter I had contented myself with looking at the pretty faces of the Egyptian women, for many of them are pretty. They are rather vain of their beauty, and thus unlike their sex in all other countries. Many of them keep the word of promise to the ear, but break it to the hope, as I have already explained, by wearing veils of such a slight texture that the features are clearly discernible through it.
It is not considered polite to look at Moslem ladies when out for a promenade; at any rate, such is the Koran’s injunction to the faithful, and they are generally careful to observe it. But I was of the infidel race, could not read the Koran, and furthermore was carried away by that fatal attribute of my sex, curiosity. What wonder, then, that I violated the Egyptian code of etiquette, and embraced every opportunity to see the faces of the Oriental beauties?
On the receipt of that letter I invoked the aid of an American lady residing in Cairo, and set about the study of Egyptian fashions.
The Egyptian women display considerable taste in their dress, quite as much as one could expect in a country where there is very little change of fashion from year to year.
They wear an under garment, with very full sleeves reaching to the wrist, made very loose and full, and which does not in the least impede the movements of the wearer. Then comes a pair of very wide trowsers, such as we see in pictures; they are held around the waist by a running string, and the lower ends are fastened in the same way just below the knee. The trowsers are made very long, so that when fastened in the way described they hang down to the feet. They are of colored, striped, worked, or plain material, and may be of silk, cotton, or muslin, according to the taste and ability of the wearer.
The next article of apparel, is a vest or wrapper of the same material as the trowsers. It fits the body with reasonable closeness, and is made to button down the front to a little below the waist, from which point it is open, and it is also open at the sides from the hips downward. According to the strict rule of the Orient, this garment should reach to the floor when the wearer stands erect, but many ladies wear it in the form of a loose jacket reaching only to the waist and gathered in rather loosely.
For the girdle a shawl or embroidered kerchief is folded diagonally, and tied loosely in such a way that the knots are not visible. The sleeves of the vest are made much larger than the arm, but are cut open below the wrist so that they do not interfere with the movements of the hands. Sleeves not much unlike them, are sometimes the fashion in Occidental countries.
Outside of the foregoing they wear a long dress or caftan of cloth, silk, or velvet, entirely open in front, hanging loosely and open at the sides like the vest, but having sleeves that reach only to the wrist. It is sometimes plain, but is more generally embroidered with gold thread or colored silk, and it should be of sufficient length to trail on the floor when the wearer walks about. Sometimes a short jacket or sacque of the same material as the above garment, and embroidered in a similar manner, is worn instead of the caftan, particularly in the warm weather when the latter would be too heavy.
Shoes are of red morocco, pointed and turned up at the toes. Stockings or socks are not generally worn, but in place of them the Egyptian ladies make use of slippers that fit quite closely. The outer shoes are large enough to go on over the slippers, and whenever a lady has occasion to step off the carpet or matting of the inner rooms of the house, she thrusts her feet into the
large shoes, or into pattens or clogs that elevate her four or five inches, and thus lift her skirts from the ground. These pattens are very difficult to manage, and give the wearer an awkward mincing gait. Adult novices find them especially inconvenient. In the few times I attempted to wear them, I think I was never able to walk more than a dozen steps, without falling down and bringing my head so near them as to illustrate the French proverb, Les extremes se touchait.
The hair is cut short over the forehead, and hangs on each side of the face to a level with the chin. The rest of the hair is combed so as to hang down the back, and it is divided into braids. These are from eleven to twenty-five, according to the wearer’s taste, but the number is always uneven, since the Egyptian ladies share the belief of Rory O’More, as recorded in the familiar song. Each braid sustains three cords of black silk, and to the cords are attached beads or scales of coral, gold, or silver, and sometimes pearls or even diamonds. Coins are attached to the ends of the cords, and the general effect is not unpleasant.
The cords are sometimes attached to a band of silk, concealed by the hair, and when thus arranged they can be removed without any disturbance of the braids. The metal or other ornaments begin just at the base of the neck, and the cords terminate about a foot farther down.
Among the lower classes other ornaments are attached to the head, and hang down over the forehead and at the side of the face, and sometimes there is such a profusion of them as to make you think a whole jewelry store has started on its travels. There was a pretty Egyptienne who used to peddle oranges around the hotel where I stopped. Her entire head was spangled around with little plaques of gilded silver, that rattled as she moved, and made a brilliant effect when she stood or walked in the sunshine.
The head-covering of an Egyptian lady consists of a fez or tarboosh—the little red cap with a silk tassel which is worn from one end of Mohammeddom to the other. A kerchief of colored muslin or crape is wound round the fez and forms a turban something like that worn by the men, but higher and more conical. On the top of the turban they frequently place a sort of inverted saucer of gold or silver gilt, embossed or in filigree-work, and ornamented with precious stones, or imitations of them. Every Egyptian lady that can afford the expense has a supply of diamonds, often of a very poor quality, and those who have not the genuine stones make a display of artificial ones. Vanity and envy are not unknown in the land of the Pharoahs.
So much for the indoor dress—the “at home” costume. Let us follow our lady out of the house and into the street.
Outside of what we have seen her wearing, she puts on a loose gown with very wide sleeves, and of rose, pink, or violet silk. Then she dons her veil, a strip of white muslin covering the face below the eyes and reaching almost to the ground. The corners are attached to a band that passes round the head, and the middle is kept well up over the nose by a narrow strip that goes over the forehead and is fastened to the encircling band. Then she puts on, if she is married, an outer covering of black silk that conceals everything but the white veil and the eyes above it. An unmarried lady wears a similar garment of white, not black silk, or she may wear a shawl instead of it. This outer garment is exceedingly inconvenient for a pedestrian excursion, and its use is obligatory only when the promenade is not to be made on foot.
For an out-door excursion the shoes give way to morocco boots, at least in. theory. But the customs of Europe are gaining ground in the Orient to the extent that many ladies of Cairo and Constantinople have adopted the French boot and discarded the Oriental one altogether. Even in Damascus, the centre of Islam, and far more fanatical than the other cities of the Orient, the French boot has found a foot-hold, (joke, poor and not intentional,) and its popularity is increasing. And this may be a good place to remark that the ladies of the Khedive’s family get a great many of their fashions from Paris, and very often the yashmak, or veil, is the only thing about them of a truly Oriental type. And this veil is not the muslin one that I have described, but the light Turkish veil, descending only a little below the chin and wound loosely about the face. Very many of the women of the lower order never conceal their faces, and many of the water-carriers and those who sell bread, oranges, and other edibles, in the streets of Cairo, go barefoot, their dress consisting only of a long gown reaching to the ankles, and a loose cloak thrown over the head and shoulders.
When our lady whose costume we have been examining goes out for a promenade, she generally rides upon a donkey. Of late years carriages have intruded upon the donkey’s domain, and the natives use them considerably, but the patient animal is still regarded with respect, and is a fashionable beast of burden. The saddle for Egyptian ladies’ use is high and broad, and covered with a small carpet, and our heroine is seated astride with both feet in the stirrups. She appears to sit very high above the animal’s back, and to be in danger of falling off, but is really quite safe and secure.
The donkeys are trained to their work, and move along very easily, with a motion that inspires confidence in the rider. There is always a man on one, and frequently on each side of the beast, and he is very watchful, knowing the trouble that would come to him should any accident befall his precious charge.
Generally all the ladies of a single harem go out together, so that the sight of two, three, or four persons thus equipped is more frequent than that of one alone. I do not mean that all the women of a single group are necessarily wives of one man; they may be his wife’s sisters, or mother; in fact, the same relation may exist as among the feminine members of an English or American family.
Many Mohammedans are monogamous, and the notions of the Occident in regard to plurality of wives are every year becoming more and more in vogue through the Orient. Many of the Cairene gentlemen have their mothers and sisters in their families, and some few have their mothers-in-law. It is proper to remark that the views of the Orient on the mother-in-law question do not differ materially from those of the Occident.
A lady in her out-of-door dress, and mounted on a donkey, appears far more like a bale of goods than like a human being. Especially is this the case if a slight wind is blowing and she is riding against it, or if the air is still and she rides faster than a walk. The silken wrapper is puffed out like a balloon, and sometimes appears to be three or four feet in diameter.
At my first view of a private harem taking its promenade, I asked a friend what those donkeys were laden with.
“The most valuable goods in Cairo,” he replied. “Without them Egypt would soon cease to exist.”
“Really!” I said. “And what are they?”
Before he could answer, one of the bundles turned in my direction, and I saw a pair of lustrous black eyes above a veil. I was enlightened, and had no more questions to ask.
A stranger in a Mohammedan city is sure to have his curiosity aroused, before he has been there many days, on the subject of marriage. Wedding processions are quite numerous; in a single afternoon’s promenade in Cairo I have seen as many as half a dozen. Naturally, the sight of such a procession leads one to ask about the marriage customs.
Among the Moslems, marriages are generally arranged by brokers, though not always so. There are some love-matches in which the parties become attached to each other without the introduction of a third party, but they are by no means common. When a man has reached the marrying age he is expected to enter the matrimonial state, unless prevented by poverty or some other impediment, and it is considered improper, and even dishonorable, for him to refrain from so doing.
If a marriageable youth has a mother, she describes to him the girls of her acquaintance, and enables him to decide whom to take to his house and home. If he has no mother, and frequently when he has one, he engages a woman whose profession is that of Khat-beh, or marriage-broker; she has access to harems where there are marriageable women, and is employed by them quite as often as by the men. She receives fees from one party and frequently from both.
Observe the superiority of Christendom over Islam. In our own country feminine match-makers are numerous, but they work without pay. The only reward they expect or desire is the satisfaction of having made two people happy—or miserable. For the result of the marriages they cause, they generally care as little as do their Moslem sisters.
The Moslem broker goes to the harems, accompanied by the mother or other feminine relations of the young man; she introduces them as ordinary visitors, but gives a sly hint as to the object of their call. If they do not like the appearance of the maiden they plead many calls to make, and cut short their stay, but if satisfied, they come to business at once, and ask how much property, personal or otherwise, the young lady possesses. When these facts are ascertained, they depart, with the intimation that they may call again.
It is a strange peculiarity of Moslem countries that a rich girl can find a husband more readily than can a poor one. I am sure such a thing was never heard of in England or America. The young man hears the report of the broker, and, if satisfied, he sends her again to the harem to state his prospects in life, and give a personal description of himself.
The broker is not particular to confine herself to facts, and indulges in that hyperbole for which the Orient is famed. Her client may be a very ordinary youth, with no property of consequence, and whom she has never seen three times in her life. She strikes an attitude before the maiden, and says:
“O, my daughter! he has heard of you, and his heart is heavy for love of you. He is handsome as the moon, and his eyes sparkle like the stars; he has a form and figure which all the world envy, and he has wealth surpassing all that Aladdin’s Lamp could bestow. He will buy the finest house in Cairo; you will be his thought by day and his dream by night, and his whole time will be devoted to loving and caressing you.”
It is customary for parents to obtain a daughter’s consent to a marriage, but this is not at all necessary, and very often is considered a mere trifle not worth regarding. Sometimes the father interferes when he discovers that the proposed husband is poor, or has a bad temper; any slight objection of this sort makes pater familias whimsical, and serves as a stumbling block. He frequently insists that a younger daughter shall not be married before an elder one, and sometimes the broker describes a young and charming maiden to the anxious youth while she negotiates the match for her elder and less attractive sister. If he subsequently complains, she assures him that it is all in the family, and says he can imagine that he has wedded the beauty by wedding her sister.
Among the middle and upper classes the man never sees the face of his bride until the marriage ceremony is concluded. This excellent custom greatly facilitates business, as it does away with any absurd notion he may have about beauty.
When the preliminaries are settled, the bridegroom calls upon the girl’s “Wekeel,” or deputy, and concludes the contract. This deputy is her nearest male relative, or her guardian, and his special duty is to fix the terms of the dowry which the husband is to pay. This varies according to the wealth and position of the parties; the least sum allowed by law is equal to about five English shillings, and this is indispensable.
Among respectable tradesmen and people of the middle classes, fifty or seventy-five dollars will suffice, and there is almost always a great deal of haggling before the amount of the dowry is fixed. From the necessity of paying something to the bride’s family, the youths not unnaturally speak of marriage as “buying a wife.” A donkey-driver whom I employed occasionally in Cairo, used to discourse upon the matter as follows:
“I save money for buy wife. When I save three pounds I buy wife, one wife. I now have save two pounds. I have wife next year.”
The contract between bridegroom and deputy is nearly always verbal, but in presence of three or more witnesses. The first chapter of the Koran is recited by them in unison, and certain prayers or other formulae are repeated, and the bridegroom is fairly “hooked.” Before they separate they fix the night when the bride is to be taken to the bridegroom’s house.
Eight or ten days pass away. He sends presents to her, and she and her family are busy preparing linen, carpets, clothing, and other items of an outfit for the bride, so that all the dowry and generally much more is expended for her use. The articles thus bought belong to her under all circumstances, and she takes them away in case she is divorced.
Two or three nights before the wedding the bridegroom hangs lanterns in front of his house to indicate what is coming, and these lanterns remain there till after the wedding. On the last night of his bachelorhood he gives a party, and it is a pleasing custom of the country that the persons invited to this party are expected to bring or send presents, so that the entertainment generally pays for itself, and very handsomely, too.
Traces of this custom are found in American weddings, where the relations and friends of the victims are expected to “come down” with valuable articles that may be useful in housekeeping, and at the same time will “spout” well at the pawnbroker’s.
The day before the bride is to be brought home she goes to the bath; her feminine friends and relatives accompany her in procession. In front are the musicians; then come married relatives; then unmarried girls and then the bride.
She walks under a canopy of bright colored silk, carried by four men who sustain a pole at each corner. The canopy is open in front, but closed on the other sides and the bride walking beneath it is completely concealed by her dress which generally consists of red silks or a red cashmere shawl over her ordinary clothing. Two of her friends walk with her under the canopy, one on each side and the procession is ended by a couple of musicians and the rag-tag of small boys that adhere to processions in all parts of the globe.
The party remains several hours in the bath which is generally hired for the occasion, and they sometimes have a grand feast there. Then they return to her house and have another feast, and on the following afternoon she is taken to the bridegroom’s house in a procession similar to that of the bath. She is conducted to the harem; her friends sup with her and then depart.
The same evening the bridegroom submits himself to the manipulations of his barber, and then goes to one of the mosques accompanied by musicians, torch-bearers, and friends.
He says his prayers, goes home, sups with his friends and leaves them after a time to their pipes and coffee while he proceeds to the harem. There he finds the bride and her attendant. The latter retires; the bridegroom lifts the veil from the bride’s head and for the first time sees her face.
So much for the forms of courtship and marriage.
Another important element of matrimony is divorce, and it is more prevalent than in our own country for the reason that it is easier. Indiana and other states famous for their facilities for unsplicing married couples might learn something from benighted Egypt and something in the language of the popular advertisement “to their advantage.” Divorce is fashionable and every respectable man must indulge in it.
The first few days of my stay in Cairo our party employed a guide whom we found at the hotel. He was an intelligent Mohammedan speaking French quite well, and his certificates of character were most flattering. While I was questioning him about marriage customs he declared with no appearance of regret in any form: "I have had nine wives and am now living with my tenth. When I don’t like a wife I divorce her.”
The whole story is told in the last sentence of his remark—“When I don’t like a wife I divorce her.” The only form of divorce necessary is for the husband to say to the wife in the presence of a single witness, “I divorce you.” No residence in Chicago or Indianapolis is necessary; there are no lawyers to be engaged and no fees to be paid; no troublesome affidavits about im-compatibility of temper and the like are to be signed, nor must one stretch his conscience in making oath to any document. Say only “I divorce you,” and the work is accomplished.
As a consequence of these facilities the people of Egypt are very much married. Men can be found in Cairo by the hundred who have had as many as twenty or thirty wives in half that number of years, and women who have had the same plurality of husbands in a similar time. But divorced women are not considered as desirable as those who have never been married, and consequently these frequent divorces fall more heavily on them than upon men. The Khedive is well aware of the debasing effect of the marriage laws and has improved them in several ways.
Polygamy is becoming less popular every year, and would probably die out altogether in course of time if it were not expressly sanctioned by the Koran.
The legal number of wives is four, but not one man in five hundred in Cairo or Constantinople avails himself of the privilege. A Mohammedan whom I questioned one day on the subject of polygamy made the following reply:
“I have one time two wife. Now I have one wife. One wife make house enough warm. Two wife make house so hot you bake bread in all times and no fire. You have three wife,—Bismillah,—house hot so no man live there.”
The mother-in-law has the same popularity among husbands in Moslem countries that she enjoys in more western lands. Most men there prefer to marry women whose mothers are dead and who have no near relatives of their own sex, and some husbands forbid their wives to see any women except those who are related to the lord and master of the house. But this latter rule is very seldom enforced.
CHAPTER LIII.—WINTER ON THE NILE—THE KHAMSEEN AND ITS EFFECTS—BEDOUIN LIFE.
Winter in Egypt—A soft and balmy air—A Rainstorm on the Nile—An Asylum for Invalids—The Month of Flowers—The “Khamseen” What is it?—A blast as from a Furnace—Singular effects of the South Wind—A Sun like Copper and a Sky like Brass—A cloud of Sand—Eating Dirt—Fleeing from the Khamseen—How the Laboring classes live—Hungry but not Cold—Oriental Houses—An Excursion to Heliopolis—Habits of the Bedouins—A Fastidious People—Life in a Bedouin Encampment—Among the Obelisks—How they were brought Five Hundred Miles—The Madonna-Tree.
THE winter climate of Egypt is one of the most charming in the world and some persons say it is the most delightful to be found anywhere. I met invalids there who had been at all the famous resorts of the West Indies, at the Sandwich Islands, in the south of France, in Spain, anywhere and everywhere, and they give the credit of superiority to Egypt.
Unfortunately the winter of 1873-4 was very bad, the worst ever known in Cairo, so the old residents said. There was a great deal of rain; altogether during the winter it rained on seventeen days; sometimes only for a few minutes, and again there were several hours of pouring rain. Ordinarily there will be from six to ten showers in the course of the winter, and for the rest of the time there is the clear sky of Egypt, day after day, and night after night. I was there nearly four months and aired my umbrella only twice in that time though there were two other occasions when I would have been glad to air it; I was caught in heavy showers with no better protection than my cane, and was forced to go home in a condition like that of a cat after an involuntary bath.
While I was up the Nile there was one slight shower of five minutes or so one evening and that was all; at the same time there was a heavy rain in Cairo that converted all the streets into lanes of mud and made it very difficult to get around. And in Alexandria it is much worse as the rain falls there many a time when not a drop is known in Cairo. The farther you go to the South in Egypt the drier you find the climate until you get beyond the desert country and into the region of the tropical rains.
Among the invalids who go there there are some who are greatly benefited, while others find no relief or are positively injured. At my hotel there were several ailing persons; some with difficulties of the chest, others with bad circulation of the blood, others with cerebral affections, others recovering from broken or sprained limbs, and others with a shortness of bank account. For the last Cairo is not to be recommended, as it is an expensive place and the habits of the country require cash payments unless you can find somebody willing to give you credit.
As for the other sufferers, some grow rapidly better, and some grow rapidly worse until sent away by the doctors, and I have known two cases of chest difficulty where one man recovered almost entirely, and the other afflicted almost exactly as his neighbor was obliged to leave in a fortnight under penalty of furnishing a fee to the coroner if he remained longer.
A resident physician says that bronchial affections, chronic diseases of the mucous membrane, debilitated circulation and scrofulous diseases of all kinds are more likely to be subdued in Egypt than most other maladies. Some consumptives have been entirely restored by a voyage on the Nile and where a man is in search of a dry atmosphere he can find it for three or four months without trouble, provided he can undertake the voyage on the river so as to spend a fortnight or three weeks in Nubia about the beginning of the year. He will thus avoid the few rains of Cairo and get back to the city in season for the delightful weather at the end of March.
There is an end to the delightful winter climate of Cairo, a climate with which I was enchanted and regretted exceedingly to leave. In all the winter I did not need an overcoat except when going out for a carriage ride, I did not need a fire in my room and there was no place for making one even had I wanted it. Every day I was able to sit at an open window and write—sometimes with my coat off—and the thermometer from eleven o’clock till an hour before sunset was rarely lower than 68°. The nights are cool and the mornings particularly so, but as I do not rise early except upon compulsion the morning freshness did not incommode me.
It is necessary to be very cautious about the night air, and one should not go out in the evening without wrapping the throat in something that will keep off the dew. But whatever the nights may be, the days are warm and one can sit in the open air, without danger and with positive comfort, provided there is no wind blowing! The trees were in full leaf, and during the month of March there was an abundance of flowers. But early in April comes the Khamseen.
“What is that?” you may possibly ask.
Well, early in April, though sometimes not till the middle or end of that month, there comes a wind from the south, a hot debilitating wind that makes you feel as stupid as a dead horse, and as cross as a bear whose ears and tail were cropped yesterday. The mercury goes above par in the shade, and is at a premium of twenty-five or thirty per cent, in the sun. Every drop of moisture has been wrung from the atmosphere in its passage over the desert, and the blast upon you feels like the breath of a furnace. Everything dries up—furniture cracks; the leaves fall from the trees; the hair crackles and emits sparks in combing; your newspaper will rustle and crack as though held over the flame of a lamp; the sheet of the letter you are writing will curl up, and before you are at the end of a word of three syllables, the first part of it will have the ink as dry as though baked in a kiln; and a wet cloth hung at the window dries up almost instantaneously. If you are in the house, you think you will walk out, and if you walk out you will wish you had staid in. It is time for you to settle your hotel bill, and get away from Cairo.
This wind is called here the “Khamseen,” but is better known to the outer world as the simoon or sirocco. It begins generally by blowing a single day, and then you have several days of pleasant weather; then you will have two, three, or four days of wind in succession, and then an interval of about the same length before another blast sets in. The natives say there are usually about fifty days of it altogether, and hence its name, Khamsecn being the Arabic word for fifty. Some years it is very mild—not more than thirty days of it—and the next year it may be mild or it may be worse. I didn’t propose to stay there to find out. I had one day of the Khamseen, and that satisfied my curiosity.
In addition to the heat, the air is full of the finest sand so that the sun looks like a ball of burning copper, and the sky becomes yellow. The sand finds its way everywhere; the furniture of the room will be covered with it; you find it in your soup and in nearly every dish that you eat; and I was told that it will get inside your watch-cases, even though you wrap your timepiece in buckskin, and lay it away in the bottom of your trunk till the sirocco is over. If you have a hollow tooth you can take enough sand out of it at the end of the Khamseen to fill an hour-glass.
Dost thou like the picture? Methinks I hear your emphatic negation.
Strangers generally leave when this desert wind comes, and those of the residents who can afford it make a trip to Europe, or if not there, to Alexandria. On the sea-coast there is less wind, and the air is several degrees cooler than at Cairo.
Alexandria is quite a pleasure resort in the summer; the court generally goes there to put in the warm weather, and sniff the breezes of the Mediterranean, and the foreign representatives do likewise. The season at Cairo ends when the court takes its departure; the city of the Caliphs becomes dull and uncomfortable. What a contrast to the most delightful winter on the face of the globe!
A great deal has been written about the sufferings of the lowest classes in Egypt, and we have had some wonderful pictures of native distress painted by travellers. The house of the fellah is a mud hovel, his clothes are scanty and his food is coarse. He is not liberally paid for his labor, and he eternally begs for “backsheesh,” not that he expects always to get it, but from
force of habit. He might have a cleaner house if he would, but as for his clothes they are more superfluous than necessary. If it were not for the prejudices of education, he might go in nakedness and would not suffer; he would be warm enough in the day time without any clothing, and if he remained in doors at night he would be equally comfortable. A strip of cloth around his loins would be enough to protect him under ordinary circumstances, and if he wants to get himself up luxuriously, he can mount a long shirt of blue cotton, and the thing is accomplished.
The laboring classes doubtless suffer from hunger—were there ever any laboring classes anywhere that did not?—but they do not suffer from cold and wet. Hunger here is not accompanied by its two great allies, cold and rain, and to my mind it is robbed of much of its terror. Is not the condition of the poor ten times as bad in our great cities in winter as in summer, solely for the reason that there must be heat and shelter along with food to keep away suffering? When I look upon this careless people and remember the advantages of their climate, I think they are to be envied perpetually by the poor of London or New York.
The court is one of the characteristics of an Oriental house. Even the meanest hovels of the lowest classes have something of the kind. The passage from the doorway into the court is usually so contrived that no view can be had from the street into it; this is sometimes done by the erection of a wall, or by giving a turn to the passage that leads into the court. Some houses have one court, others two, and three are not uncommon. If a house has but one court, it is generally an open space or quadrangle, round which the apartments for the inmates, and in country places also the sheds for the cattle, are arranged. In the very poorest of these there is merely one apartment, and a shed for cattle, and the court or yard is surrounded with a hedge of thorny boughs, having only one court, of a far superior kind. Entering into the courtyard you see around you a number of little buildings, not deficient in convenience, and occasionally presenting a certain air of elegance—though frequently constructed on no regular plan. In these are found various little chambers, one piled upon the other, the half-roof of which always forms a terrace for walking, from which a little flight of steps or ladder leads to the dwelling-house, or to the upper terrace. This court is well paved; on one side doors lead to the apartments of the family, and on the other to those of the servants. They are often beautified with a number of fragrant trees and marble fountains, and compassed round with splendid apartments and divans. The divans are floored and adorned on the sides with a variety of inlaid marbles wrought in interlacing patterns. They are placed on all sides of the court, so that at one or other of them, shade or sunshine can always be enjoyed at pleasure. In the summer season, or when a large company is to be received, the court is usually sheltered from the heat and inclemencies of the weather by a curtain or awning, which, being expanded upon ropes from one wall to the other, may be folded or unfolded at pleasure.
I spent a day delightfully and profitably in making an excursion from Cairo to Heliopolis, where, in remote antiquity an imperial city stood, but whose site is now only marked by a few mounds, and by an obelisk supposed to be the oldest in Egypt. The road leads through fertile gardens, and irrigated fields of corn and rice, and past many Bedouin encampments.
The Arabs are peculiarly sensitive to noisome smells, and in a city they may frequently be observed hurrying along with their nostrils closed by a corner of the kerchief, to avoid the effluvia which surrounds them. This is one reason why they always prefer pitching their tents without, to residing within the walls.
The real Bedouin visits the city only to make purchases at the bazaars, and he is the most picturesque of all the moving figures in an Eastern crowd. Strong, but slender in frame, his striped abba hangs easily in heavy folds over his shoulder, and his dark skin and prominent features, and keen black eye, all mark the unchanged son of the desert, who belongs not to the city, but passes through it, indifferent to its conveniences and luxuries, and despising its customs like his ancestors. In my journey up the Nile I saw many encampments of genuine Bedouins, and I always found that an Arab in his encampment is a different being from what he is when wandering in the desert. Within the former his time is idly passed, smoking, drinking coffee, and sleeping; yet his steed was always ready caparisoned at the door of his tent; beside him in the sand was planted his spear, and at the call of his chief he was ready to vault into his saddle, and rush forth to battle with all the fire of his nation.
From Cairo to Heliopolis the distance is only five or six miles, and a donkey ride of less than two hours brought us to the foot of the solitary obelisk that exists to remind us of the once famous “city of the sun.” The obelisk is of red granite, and must have come from the quarries of Syene five hundred miles away. It measures sixty-seven feet in height, and its base is buried several feet in earth, gradually deposited by successive overflows of the Nile. It is covered with hieroglyphics and bears the name of Osirtesen I., the most illustrious member of the XIIth Dynasty, who reigned over both Upper and Lower Egypt. Who executed it, or sculptured it, or how it was transported to its present site, and erected, are questions not yet answered.
A taste for story-telling is still one of their leading characteristics. They know no greater pleasure than to assemble together in their encampment, and seated in front of one of their number, smoke, and listen with the most intense interest to the exploits of warriors, the adventures of lovers, or the enchantment of sorcerers, until want of breath and want of sleep put an end to the tales.
Hard by there is an old sycamore tree—called the Madonna’s tree—under which, tradition says, Mary rested with her infant when flying from Herod. It looks like a stunted tree of enormous growth, as if several trees springing up side by side had grown together. That the tree as it now stands is of very great age, there can be no manner of doubt.
