The Egyptian boatmen have reason to complain of the Barrage. The main force of the river is poured through the narrow space wherein the piers have not yet been sunk, which cannot be passed without a strong north wind. Forty or fifty boats were lying along the shore, waiting the favorable moment. We obtained permission from the engineer to attach our boat to a large government barge, which was to be drawn up by a stationary windlass. As we put off, the wind freshened, and we were slowly urged against the current to the main rapid, where we were obliged to hold on to our big friend. Behind us the river was white with sails—craft of all kinds, pushed up by the wind, dragged down by the water, striking against each other, entangling their long sails and crowding into the narrow passage, amid shouts, cries and a bewildering profusion of Arabic gutturals. For half an hour, the scene was most exciting, but thanks to the windlass, we reached smoother water, and sailed off gayly for Cairo.
The true Nile expanded before us, nearly two miles in width. To the south, the three Pyramids of Gizeh loomed up like isolated mountain-peaks on the verge of the Desert. On the right hand the Mokattam Hills lay red and bare in the sunshine, and ere long, over the distant gardens of Shoobra, we caught sight of the Citadel of Cairo, and the minarets of the mosque of Sultan Hassan. The north wind was faithful: at three o’clock we were anchored in Boulak, paid our raïs, gave the crew a backsheesh, for which they kissed our hands with many exclamations of “taïb!” (good!) and set out for Cairo.
CHAPTER III.
PICTURES OF CAIRO.
Entrance—The Ezbekiyeh—Saracenic Houses—Donkeys—The Bazaars—The Streets—Processions—View from the Citadel—Mosque of Mohammed Ali—The Road to Suez—The Island of Rhoda.
Our approach to and entrance into Cairo was the illuminated frontispiece to the volume of my Eastern life. From the Nile we had already seen the mosque of Sultan Hassan, the white domes, and long, pencil-like minarets of the new mosque of Mohammed Ali, and the massive masonry of the Citadel, crowning a projecting spur of the Mokattam Hills, which touches the city on the eastern side. But when, mounted on ambling donkeys, we followed the laden baggage-horses through the streets of Boulak, and entered the broad, shaded highway leading through gardens, grain-fields and groves of palm and banana, to the gate of the Ezbekiyeh—the great square of Cairo—the scene, which, at a distance, had been dimmed and softened by the filmy screen of the Egyptian air, now became so gay, picturesque and animated, so full of life and motion and color, that my dreams of the East were at once displaced by the vivid reality. The donkey-riding multitudes who passed continually to and fro, were wholly unlike the crowds of Smyrna and Alexandria, where the growing influence of European dress and customs is already visible. Here, every thing still exhaled the rich aroma of the Orient as it had been wafted to me from the Thousand and One Nights, the Persian poets and the Arab chroniclers. I forgot that I still wore a Frank dress, and found myself wondering at the temerity of the few Europeans we met. I looked without surprise on the long processions of donkeys carrying water-skins, the heavily-laden camels, the women with white masks on their faces and black bags around their bodies, the stolid Nubian slaves, the grave Abyssinians, and all the other various characters that passed and repassed us. But because they were so familiar, they were none the less interesting, for all had been acquaintances, when, like Tennyson, “true Mussulman was I, and sworn,” under the reign of the good Haroun Al-Raschid.
We entered the Ezbekiyeh, which is wholly overgrown with majestic acacias and plane-trees, and thickets of aromatic flowering shrubs. It is in the Frank quarter of the city, and was first laid out and planted by order of Mohammed Ali. All the principal hotels front upon it, and light, thatched cafés fill the space under the plane-trees, where the beau monde of Cairo promenade every Sunday evening. Nothing of the old City of the Caliphs, except a few tall minarets, can be seen from this quarter, but the bowery luxuriance of the foliage is all that the eye demands, and over the plain white walls, on every side, the palms—single, or in friendly groups—lift their feathery crowns. After installing our household gods in the chambers of the quiet and comfortable Hotel d’Europe, we went out to enjoy the sweet evening air in front of one of the cafés. I tried for the first time the narghileh, or Persian water-pipe. The soft, velvety leaves of the tobacco of Shiraz are burned in a small cup, the tube of which enters a glass vase, half filled with rose-scented water. From the top of this vase issues a flexible tube, several feet in length, with a mouth-piece of wood or amber. At each inspiration, the smoke is drawn downward and rises through the water with a pleasant bubbling sound. It is deprived of all the essential oil of the weed, and is exceedingly mild, cool and fragrant. But instead of being puffed out of the mouth in whiffs, it is breathed full into the lungs and out again, like the common air. This is not so difficult a matter as might be supposed; the sensation is pleasant and slightly exhilarating, and is not injurious to the lungs when moderately indulged in.
The Turkish quarter of Cairo still retains the picturesque Saracenic architecture of the times of the Caliphs. The houses are mostly three stories in height, each story projecting over the other, and the plain stone walls are either whitewashed or striped with horizontal red bars, in a manner which would be absurd under a northern sky, but which is here singularly harmonious and agreeable. The only signs of sculpture are occasional doorways with richly carved arches, or the light marble gallery surrounding a fountained court. I saw a few of these in retired parts of the city. The traveller, however, has an exhaustless source of delight in the wooden balconies inclosing the upper windows. The extraordinary lightness, grace and delicate fragility of their workmanship, rendered still more striking by contrast with the naked solidity of the walls to which they cling, gave me a new idea of the skill and fancy of the Saracenic architects. The wood seems rather woven in the loom, than cut with the saw and chisel. Through these lattices of fine net-work, with borders worked in lace-like patterns, and sometimes topped with slender turrets and pinnacles, the wives of the Cairene merchants sit and watch the crowds passing softly to and fro in the twilight of the bazaars, themselves unseen. It needed no effort of the imagination to people the fairy watch-towers under which we rode daily, with forms as beautiful as those which live in the voluptuous melodies of Hafiz.
To see Cairo thoroughly, one must first accustom himself to the ways of those long-eared cabs, without the use of which I would advise no one to trust himself in the bazaars. Donkey-riding is universal, and no one thinks of going beyond the Frank quarter on foot. If he does, he must submit to be followed by not less than six donkeys with their drivers. A friend of mine, who was attended by such a cavalcade for two hours, was obliged to yield at last, and made no second attempt. When we first appeared in the gateway of our hotel, equipped for an excursion, the rush of men and animals was so great, that we were forced to retreat until our servant and the porter whipped us a path through the yelling and braying mob. After one or two trials, I found an intelligent Arab boy, named Kish, who, for five piastres a day, furnished strong and ambitious donkeys, which he kept ready at the door from morning till night. The other drivers respected Kish’s privilege, and thenceforth I had no trouble. The donkeys are so small that my feet nearly touched the ground, but there is no end to their strength and endurance. Their gait, whether a pace or a gallop, is so easy and light that fatigue is impossible. The drivers take great pride in having high-cushioned red saddles, and in hanging bits of jingling brass to the bridles. They keep their donkeys close shorn, and frequently beautify them by painting them various colors. The first animal I rode had legs barred like a zebra’s, and my friend’s rejoiced in purple flanks and a yellow belly. The drivers run behind them with a short stick, punching them from time to time, or giving them a sharp pinch on the rump. Very few of them own their donkeys, and I understood their pertinacity when I learned that they frequently received a beating on returning home in the evening empty-handed.
The passage of the bazaars seems at first quite as hazardous on donkey-back as on foot, but it is the difference between knocking somebody down and being knocked down yourself, and one naturally prefers the former alternative. There is no use in attempting to guide the donkey, for he won’t be guided. The driver shouts behind, and you are dashed at full speed into a confusion of other donkeys, camels, horses, carts, water-carriers and footmen. In vain you cry out: “Bess!” (enough!) “Piano!” and other desperate adjurations; the driver’s only reply is: “Let the bridle hang loose!” You dodge your head under a camel-load of planks; your leg brushes the wheel of a dust-cart; you strike a fat Turk plump in the back; you miraculously escape upsetting a fruit-stand; you scatter a company of spectral, white-masked women, and at last reach some more quiet street, with the sensation of a man who has stormed a battery. At first this sort of riding made me very nervous, but finally I let the donkey go his own way, and took a curious interest in seeing how near a chance I ran of striking or being struck. Sometimes there seemed no hope of avoiding a violent collision, but by a series of the most remarkable dodges he generally carried me through in safety. The cries of the driver, running behind, gave me no little amusement: “The Howadji comes! Take care on the right hand! take care on the left hand! O man, take care! O maiden, take care! O boy, get out of the way! The Howadji comes!” Kish had strong lungs and his donkey would let nothing pass him, and so, wherever we went, we contributed our full share to the universal noise and confusion.