I used to like watching the Egyptian women carrying water gourds and things on their heads. I never saw one come to grief; their sense of balance was A1. It made a fellow stare some to see a slender little woman about seven-stone-nothing pick up a big gourd of water for all the world like a ten-gallon drum, balance it on her head, and trip off with it, wearing a kind of "old-man-you-couldn't-lick-that" smile on her face. I once saw a woman carrying on her head what I at first took to be a small hut; on coming closer it proved to be a large door piled up with all the family goods and chattels. The man of the house rode beside the old lady on a donkey, encouraging her the while between puffs at his cigarette by singing an Arab love song. He had a voice like a quinsy-smitten parrakeet, so, perhaps, that accounted for her staying power. And yet she seemed quite satisfied with this truly Eastern division of labour. They all do: ask a woman in Egypt why she doesn't make her better half (or quarter, or other fraction) graft a bit more, and she thinks you are poking fun at her; go one further and tell her that your wife doesn't do any hard work (which is a lie!) and she, if she can speak English, promptly informs you that "Engelsch woman one dam fool!" So there you are—where you started.
I used to read of the spicy and scented East, but it was some time before we struck the brand you find in books of travel. True, we had found a variety of "scents" in the land of Rameses, but they weren't the kind of thing you'd invite your latest girl to inhale—although they were all fairly "spicy," and typically Eastern. Cairo has its full share; in fact, it bubbles over in parts, and yet it was in Cairo that I ran the travel-book's own particular to earth.
Reader, were you ever in the Native Bazaar in Cairo? If you weren't, take my tip and pay it a visit the first time you happen to slide Eastward. You'll not regret having done so. But—a word in your ear—don't carry more than, say, £1000 in your pocket, for you'll spend every piastre you can lay hands on before they let you go, and you'll blue the cash without caring a well-known adjective where the next cheque is coming from.
The entrance to the Bazaar is far from imposing. I toddled in by way of a row of butchers' booths and fruit-sellers' stalls, to find myself transplanted straight into a scene from the Arabian Nights Entertainments. I rubbed my eyes, opened them again—and lo! the Grand Vizier bowed before me (with a face like an Adelphi assassin—but this by the way, for I don't suppose it was his fault). He named his price, I offered him 200 per cent. less; for a moment he seemed on the point of fainting from surprise and indignation, then, recovering, he accepted my terms and proceeded to do the honours of the place in the capacity of guide. An amusing enough cut-throat he proved to be, too, although just a bit too fond of talking about his adventures with the ladies. Some of his yarns—— Ahem!
(Here in parentheses let me give the new chum a word of advice on the engaging of guides in Egypt. On arriving at the particular show he has set out to inspect—and often before he gets within coo-ee of it—he will find himself beset by an ill-clad and evil-smelling mob of hooligans all yelling fit to raise Lazarus. Don't let them rattle him, however; his game is to select the biggest, ugliest, loudest-voiced and most villainous-looking assassin in the push, make his bargain with the gentleman much as he would with a Paddy jarvey, then order him to "Lead on, Macduff"—and leave the rest to the aforesaid gentleman. There will be no further trouble with the other lot; the guide, if our friend possesses the faculty of reading faces, will see to that.)
I soon found I had made a wise selection, for a single glance from the Vizier's eagle eye was sufficient to send the rest of the unemployed scuttling to cover. He didn't have to use his feet once; it was another instance of the triumph of mind over matter. I told him so, but I fancy he didn't quite take me—bowed almost to the ground as he requested me to "spik Engelsch as he no spik French moch well." I think he must have been the Prince of all the Assassins.
On entering Aladdin's Palace the first thing that strikes you is the narrowness and crookedness of the streets: in many places a long-armed man could pinch scent from a booth on one side, while helping himself to a silk scarf on the other—if he were not watched so closely by the merchants. Then the light is very subdued; something like that you run across in the bush, while everywhere your nose is assailed by the perfume of crushed flowers and spices. Look upward and you will see the sky a mere slit between the confining walls of the lofty, old-world houses; look around and you will see the wealth of the East in lavish profusion. In a word, you are in Old Cairo, to my mind one of the most interesting spots in Egypt.
Let us stroll down this close-packed double row of little windowless stalls that resemble nothing so much as dog boxes in a canine show. See that old fellow with the Arab features and dress, working so industriously at his clumsy native loom: he is eighty if he is a day, and just as likely as not ten years older. Note the speed and skill with which his knotted old fingers do their work. He is weaving a silk scarf, a beautiful piece of work, which later on may adorn the shoulders of some harem favourite—or a New York belle. In the next stall squats a native tailor or vestment maker. Opposite him a spice merchant calls your attention to his wares, just as his forefathers did in the days of Abraham. A few yards farther and we come on a couple of young natives busily pounding away with heavy steel pestles in a mortar surely identical with the jars in which the Forty Thieves secreted themselves—scent and pot-pourri makers almost certainly. Squeezing past a mild-looking camel, which we do not trust, however, we almost stumble over a couple of silk spinners, an old man and a precocious-looking boy. The spinning-wheel might have come straight from an Irish cottage. The yarn is passed through the interstices of the boy's small white teeth, the idea being to clean it of foreign matter, I suppose. Flattening ourselves against a sweetmeat stall to permit of the passage of a train of heavily laden donkeys, our eyes are dazzled the while by a glimpse of a silk merchant's stock in the booth opposite; hanging to the walls, piled in huge heaps, and lying around anyhow, are scarves, robes, and vestments in all the colours of the rainbow. What would that stuff be worth in London or Melbourne? Who knows?... We turn the corner, dodge a cow and a goat that are being milked in the street, and find ourselves at the entrance door of a dealer in beaten brass and copper goods, Japanese ware, and antiques. This we enter, ignoring the protests of our guide, who would much prefer that our custom should go to the more flashy-looking store farther up the street—kept by his brother or uncle, most likely, and a first-rate house for buying Eastern curios and antiques made in Birmingham. You tell him so, insult the memory of his mother, and leave him to continue his protestations on the threshold.
There are many things we should like to purchase. That pair of vases, for instance, so beautifully chased and inlaid with silver, price £20. Or that group representing a couple of Japanese wrestlers, dirt cheap at £18. Or that magnificent cabinet—— But our finances only run to two weeks' pay at two shillings per diem, so we turn our attention to flower-holders, candlesticks, and such-like cheaper lines of goods, enjoying the while a cup of excellent Egyptian coffee and some unusually good cigarettes at the expense of the proprietor. Shopping in Cairo is a slow game, so we kill an hour in the making of our purchases—and emerge with a balance still at the bank.
And now we come on a street almost entirely given over to the vendors of silks and ostrich feathers. What a wealth of colour! And how harmoniously the myriad tints blend with the flowing robes of the natives, the duller hues of the crumbling walls, rickety, projecting balconies, and sun-blanched lattices! Looking down the narrow thoroughfare packed as it is with a moving sea of quaintly garbed figures, suggests an ever-changing arabesque, kaleidoscopic-like in its effect. It is the East as Mohammed found it, a bit of Old Egypt basking snugly in the warmth of a truly oriental setting.... We thread our way slowly through the noisy crowd of guttural-tongued natives, and emerge with something approaching a shock into the clang and rattle of a modern city street with its electric cars, resplendent automobiles, and plate-glass windows. Yet even here the East holds its own: you see it in the strings of camels and the numerous donkeys that dispute the right of way with the big touring cars and electric runabouts; in the open-air cafés; in the dress of the natives, especially the sherbet and lemonade sellers, and the hawkers of sweetmeats and cigarettes; but it is the meeting of the Occident and Orient, the commingling of the East and West, and the effect is anything but congruous.