A thousand miles up the Nile

by Amelia B. Edwards

Here, then, without definite plans, outfit, or any kind of oriental experience, behold us arrived in Cairo on the 29th of November, 1873, literally, and most prosaically, in search of fine weather.

But what had memory to do with rains on land, or storms at sea, or the impatient hours of quarantine, or anything dismal or disagreeable, when one awoke at sunrise to see those gray-green palms outside the window solemnly bowing their plumed heads toward each other, against a rose-colored dawn? It was dark last night, and I had no idea that my room overlooked an enchanted garden, far-reaching and solitary, peopled with stately giants beneath whose tufted crowns hung rich clusters of maroon and amber dates. It was a still, warm morning. Grave gray and black crows flew heavily from tree to tree, or perched, cawing meditatively, upon the topmost branches. Yonder, between the pillared stems, rose the minaret of a very distant mosque; and here, where the garden was bounded by a high wall and a windowless house, I saw a veiled lady walking on the terraced roof in the midst of a cloud of pigeons. Nothing could be more simple than the scene and its accessories; nothing, at the same time, more eastern, strange, and unreal.

But in order thoroughly to enjoy an overwhelming, ineffaceable first impression of oriental out-of-door life one should begin in Cairo with a day in the native bazaars; neither buying, nor sketching, nor seeking information, but just taking in scene after scene, with its manifold combinations of light and shade, color, costume, and architectural detail. Every shop front, every street corner, every turbaned group is a ready-made picture. The old Turk who sets up his cake stall in the recess of a sculptured doorway; the donkey boy, with his gayly caparisoned ass, waiting for customers; the beggar asleep on the steps of the mosque; the veiled woman filling her water jar at the public fountain—they all look as if they had been put there expressly to be painted.

Nor is the background less picturesque than the figures. The houses are high and narrow. The upper stories project; and from these again jut windows of delicate turned lattice work in old brown wood, like big bird-cages. The street is roofed in overhead with long rafters and pieces of matting, through which a dusty sunbeam straggles here and there, casting patches of light upon the moving crowd. The unpaved thoroughfare—a mere narrow lane, full of ruts and watered profusely twice or thrice a day—is lined with little wooden shop fronts, like open cabinets full of shelves, where the merchants sit cross-legged in the midst of their goods, looking out at the passers-by and smoking in silence. Meanwhile, the crowd ebbs and flows unceasingly—a noisy, changing, restless, party-colored tide, half European, half oriental, on foot, on horseback, and in carriages. Here are Syrian dragomans in baggy trousers and braided jackets; barefooted Egyptian fellaheen in ragged blue shirts and felt skull-caps; Greeks in absurdly stiff white tunics, like walking pen-wipers; Persians with high miter-like caps of dark woven stuff; swarthy Bedouins in flowing garments, creamy-white, with chocolate stripes a foot wide, and head-shawl of the same bound about the brow with a fillet of twisted camel’s hair; Englishmen in palm-leaf hats and knickerbockers, dangling their long legs across almost invisible donkeys; native women of the poorer class, in black veils that leave only the eyes uncovered, and long trailing garments of dark blue and black striped cotton; dervishes in patchwork coats, their matted hair streaming from under fantastic head-dresses; blue-black Abyssinians with incredibly slender, bowed legs, like attenuated ebony balustrades; Armenian priests, looking exactly like Portia as the doctor, in long black gowns and high square caps; majestic ghosts of Algerine Arabs, all in white; mounted Janissaries with jingling sabers and gold-embroidered jackets; merchants, beggars, soldiers, boatmen, laborers, workmen, in every variety of costume, and of every shade of complexion from fair to dark, from tawny to copper-color, from deepest bronze to bluest black.

Now a water-carrier goes by, bending under the weight of his newly replenished goatskin, the legs of which being tied up, the neck fitted with a brass cock, and the hair left on, looks horribly bloated and life-like. Now comes a sweetmeat-vender with a tray of that gummy compound known to English children as “lumps of delight”; and now an Egyptian lady on a large gray donkey led by a servant with a showy saber at his side. The lady wears a rose-colored silk dress and white veil, besides a black silk outer garment, which, being cloak, hood, and veil all in one, fills out with the wind as she rides, like a balloon. She sits astride; her naked feet, in their violet velvet slippers, just resting on the stirrups. She takes care to display a plump brown arm laden with massive gold bracelets, and, to judge by the way in which she uses a pair of liquid black eyes, would not be sorry to let her face be seen also. Nor is the steed less well dressed than his mistress. His close-shaven legs and hindquarters are painted in blue and white zigzags picked out with bands of pale yellow; his high-pommeled saddle is resplendent with velvet and embroidery; and his head-gear is all tags, tassels, and fringes. Such a donkey as this is worth from sixty to a hundred pounds sterling. Next passes an open barouche full of laughing Englishwomen; or a grave provincial sheik all in black, riding a handsome bay Arab, demi-sang; or an Egyptian gentleman in European dress and Turkish fez, driven by an English groom in an English phaeton. Before him, wand in hand, bare-legged, eager-eyed, in Greek skull-cap and gorgeous gold-embroidered waistcoat and fluttering white tunic, flies a native saïs, or running footman. No person of position drives in Cairo without one or two of these attendants. The saïs (strong, light and beautiful, like John of Bologna’s Mercury) are said to die young. The pace kills them. Next passes a lemonade-seller, with his tin jar in one hand and his decanter and brass cups in the other; or an itinerant slipper-vender with a bunch of red and yellow morocco shoes dangling at the end of a long pole; or a London-built miniature brougham containing two ladies in transparent Turkish veils, preceded by a Nubian outrider in semi-military livery; or, perhaps, a train of camels, ill-tempered and supercilious, craning their scrannel necks above the crowd, and laden with canvas bales scrawled over with Arabic addresses.

But the Egyptian, Arab and Turkish merchants, whether mingling in the general tide or sitting on their counters, are the most picturesque personages in all this busy scene. They wear ample turbans, for the most part white; long vests of striped Syrian silk reaching to the feet; and an outer robe of braided cloth or cashmere. The vest is confined round the waist by a rich sash; and the outer robe, or gibbeh, is generally of some beautiful degraded color, such as maize, mulberry, olive, peach, sea-green, salmon-pink, sienna-brown, and the like. That these stately beings should vulgarly buy and sell, instead of reposing all their lives on luxurious divans and being waited upon by beautiful Circassians, seems altogether contrary to the eternal fitness of things. Here, for instance, is a grand vizier in a gorgeous white and amber satin vest, who condescends to retail pipe-bowls—dull red clay pipe-bowls of all sizes and prices. He sells nothing else, and has not only a pile of them on the counter, but a binful at the back of his shop. They are made at Siout, in Upper Egypt, and may be bought at the Algerine shops in London almost as cheaply as in Cairo. Another majestic pasha deals in brass and copper vessels, drinking-cups, basins, ewers, trays, incense-burners, chafing-dishes, and the like; some of which are exquisitely engraved with arabesque patterns or sentences from the poets. A third sells silks from the looms of Lebanon and gold and silver tissues from Damascus. Others, again, sell old arms, old porcelian, old embroideries, second-hand prayer-carpets, and quaint little stools and cabinets of ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Here, too, the tobacco merchant sits behind a huge cake of latakia as big as his own body; and the sponge merchant smokes his long chibouk in a bower of sponges.

Most amusing of all, however, are those bazaars in which each trade occupies its separate quarter. You pass through an old stone gateway or down a narrow turning, and find yourself amid a colony of saddlers, stitching, hammering, punching, riveting. You walk up one alley and down another, between shop fronts hung round with tasseled head-gear and hump-backed saddles of all qualities and colors. Here are ladies’ saddles, military saddles, donkey saddles, and saddles for great officers of state; saddles covered with red leather, with crimson and violet velvet, with maroon, and gray, and purple cloth; saddles embroidered with gold and silver, studded with brass-headed nails, or trimmed with braid.

Another turn or two, and you are in the slipper bazaar, walking down avenues of red and yellow morocco slippers; the former of home manufacture, the latter from Tunis. Here are slippers with pointed toes, turned-up toes, and toes as round and flat as horseshoes; walking slippers with thick soles, and soft yellow slippers to be worn as inside socks, which have no soles at all. These absurd little scarlet bluchers with tassels are for little boys; the brown morocco shoes are for grooms; the velvet slippers embroidered with gold and beads and seed pearls are for wealthy hareens, and are sold at prices varying from five shillings to five pounds the pair.

The carpet bazaar is of considerable extent, and consists of a network of alleys and counter-alleys opening off to the right of the Muski, which is the Regent street of Cairo. The houses in most of these alleys are rich in antique lattice windows and Saracenic doorways. One little square is tapestried all round with Persian and Syrian rugs, Damascus saddle-bags, and Turkish prayer-carpets. The merchants sit and smoke in the midst of their goods; and up in one corner an old “kahwagee,” or coffee-seller, plies his humble trade. He has set up his little stove and hanging-shelf beside the doorway of a dilapidated khan, the walls of which are faced with arabesque panelings in old carved stone. It is one of the most picturesque “bits” in Cairo. The striped carpets of Tunis; the dim gray and blue, or gray and red fabrics of Algiers; the shaggy rugs of Laodicea and Smyrna; the rich blues and greens and subdued reds of Turkey; and the wonderfully varied, harmonious patterns of Persia, have each their local habitation in the neighboring alleys. One is never tired of traversing these half-lighted avenues all aglow with gorgeous color and peopled with figures that come and go like the actors in some Christmas piece of oriental pageantry.

In the Khan Khaleel, the place of the gold and silver smiths’ bazaar, there is found, on the contrary, scarcely any display of goods for sale. The alleys are so narrow in this part that two persons can with difficulty walk in them abreast; and the shops, tinier than ever, are mere cupboards with about three feet of frontage. The back of each cupboard is fitted with tiers of little drawers and pigeon-holes, and in front is a kind of matted stone step, called a mastabah, which serves for seat and counter. The customer sits on the edge of the mastabah; the merchant squats, cross-legged, inside. In this position he can, without rising, take out drawer after drawer; and thus the space between the two becomes piled with gold and silver ornaments. These differ from each other only in the metal, the patterns being identical; and they are sold by weight, with a due margin for profit. In dealing with strangers who do not understand the Egyptian system of weights, silver articles are commonly weighed against rupees or five-franc pieces, and gold articles against napoleons or sovereigns. The ornaments made in Cairo consist chiefly of chains and earrings, anklets, bangles, necklaces strung with coins or tusk-shaped pendants, amulet-cases of filigree or repoussé work, and penannular bracelets of rude execution, but rich and ancient designs. As for the merchants their civility and patience are inexhaustible. One may turn over their whole stock, try on all their bracelets, go away again and again without buying, and yet be always welcomed and dismissed with smiles. L—— and the writer spent many an hour practicing Arabic in the Khan Khaleel, without, it is to be feared, a corresponding degree of benefit to the merchants.