I think I have already stated that Cairo is a wicked old city. Well, it is. There are places in Cairo that I wouldn't take my grandmother through—places that would curl a padre's toenails backwards, or send the blood to the cheek of a Glasgow policeman. Shebangs where they sell you whisky that takes the lining of your throat down with it, and lifts your stomach up to the roof of your skull; a soothing liquid that licks "forty-rod," "chained lightning," or "Cape smoke " to the back of creation; the kind of lush that gives you a sixty-horse dose of the jim-jams while you wait. Real good stuff it is—for taking tar off a fence.
There are streets in Cairo where the stench is so great that the wonder is how any living thing can breathe it and survive; in comparison with which a glue factory or fertiliser works is Attar of Roses, and an Irish pigsty a featherbed in heaven; and yet in these streets—these cesspools—the painted ladies of low degree live and move and carry on abominations which are unnamable; things which the brute creation is guiltless of.
There are other streets in Cairo where the painted ladies of higher degree—the very patricians of their profession—follow their calling in an atmosphere of luxury permeated by all the seductive and sensual voluptuousness of a land which for countless æons has been the home of the voluptuary and the pleasure seeker; an atmosphere to breathe which might shatter the vows of an anchoret.
There are houses in Cairo in which certain male and female vampires batten and wax rich on the proceeds of a thriving trade in the White Slave Market; houses in which wives are bought and sold like so many bullocks; aye, and houses in which, if rumour say truly, a man will sell you his own daughter—and not think it worth his while to witness the wedding ceremony!
Yes, it is a wicked old city, the Rio Cairo. I have a lively remembrance of a certain Sunday evening which I put in as one of a strong Town Picket. Our "beat" lay for the most part in the localities I have just been describing, and it would be putting it mildly to say that we had our eyes opened to the pleasant little ways of the Eastern. It was more than an eye-opener; it was a revelation. And in some ways I reckon it was an education. At the same time I shouldn't advise the prospective student to imbibe too deeply of that sink—er—well of learning. I can smell that aroma even now.
About six or seven miles up the line from our camp lay the native village of Maarg. I had heard that this was a typical Arabic-Egyptian settlement, and that it was quite unvisited by the troops, so I resolved to prospect it. Giving Church Parade a miss the following Sunday, my mate and I toddled down to Helmieh Station, had an early dinner in an eating-house there, and took train to Maarg Siding. The country we passed through was very different from that which surrounded our camp; it was all irrigated soil, hence the track wound through a belt of land blooming with flowers, lush grass, and magnificent berseine crops. Everywhere the date palm, the prickly pear, the banana, and the fig grew in the most prodigal profusion; everywhere one saw donkeys, buffaloes, camels, goats, and hybrid sheep revelling in the midst of plenty. The soil simply exuded fertility; tickle its bosom and the milk flowed.
Yet it wasn't worked. The surface was only scratched by an ox-drawn wooden plough, the pattern for which came out of the Ark. True, it was irrigated—as Joseph and his Brethren irrigated their selections. Here and there one caught a glimpse of a scantily clad fellah raising water from a channel by means of a rope attached to a weighted and counterpoised pole and bucket, or slowly turning the handle of an archimedean screw. Occasionally oxen were pressed into the service, and kept to their work by women or children armed with goads. In such cases the water was raised by the agency of a wheel furnished with gourds, or sherds, attached equidistantly all round its circumference. The ox walked round in a circle, its dexter optic being obscured by means of a pad to prevent its entering on the broad way that leadeth to destruction—and, incidentally, throwing the water supply out of gear. When you bellowed Ah-h-h! like a goat, it kept going on its circular tour, and an abruptly terminated Ye-e-es! caused it to come to a full stop. It would rather stop than go any time.
We left the train at the siding, and bumped straight away into the usual mob of donkey boys and beggars. Threading our way through this lot we skirted a native café and store, and set out for the village situated some half-mile to the right front, the crowd of jabbering and gesticulating mongrels falling into procession behind us. In this formation we betook us through a plantation of date palms, past a paddock or two of vivid green berseine, and arrived at a flour-mill on the outskirts of the settlement. An old dame with a face like a gargoyle sat at the door selling sticky-looking native sweetmeats and Turkish Delight, while inside the mill was a crowd of women and young girls, some of the latter by no means bad-looking. When they smiled (which later on they did) you had a vision of ivory teeth, flashing eyes, and A1 lips and cheeks—the latter tinged with a nut-brown bronze.
Just now, however, there wasn't a smile in the bunch. They were as scared as a mob of full-mouth ewes. I doubt if some of them had ever seen a soldier in their natural—although I expect they had heard a lot about the boys. Anyway they just crowded into a corner of the mill and squinted at us like a bunch of half-tanked parrakeets. Something had to be done. My mate solved the difficulty.
"How about buying the old lady out and filling up the nippers?" he said.