Mentone, Cairo, and Corfu

by Constance Fenimore Woolson

One spends half one's time in the bazaars, perhaps. One admires them and adores them; but one feels that their attraction cannot be made clear to others by words. Nor can it be by the camera. There are a thousand photographic views of Cairo offered for sale, but, with the exception of an attempt at the gateway of the Khan Khaleel, not one copy of these labyrinths, which is a significant fact. Their charm comes from color, and this can be represented by the painter's brush alone. But even the painter can render it only in bits. From a selfish point of view we might perhaps be glad that there is one spot left on this earth whose characteristic aspect cannot be reproduced, either upon the wall or the pictured page, whose shimmering vistas must remain a purely personal memory. We can say to those who have in their minds the same fantastic vision, "Ah, you know!" But we cannot make others know. For what is the use of declaring that a collection of winding lanes, some of them not more than three feet broad, opening into and leading out of each other, unpaved, dirty, roofed far above, where the high stone houses end, with a lattice-work of old mats—what is the use of declaring that this maze is one of the most delightful places in the world? There is no use; one must see it to believe it.

We approach the bazaars by the Mooski, a street which has lost all its ancient attraction—which is, in fact, one of the most commonplace avenues I know. But near its end the enchantment begins, and whether we enter the flag bazaar, the lemon-colored-slipper bazaar, the gold-and-silver bazaar, the bazaar of the Soudan, the bazaar of silks and embroideries, the bazaar of Turkish carpets, or the lane of perfumes felicitously named by the donkey-boys the smell bazaar, we are soon in the condition of children before a magician's table. I defy any one to resist it. The most tired American business man looks about him with awakened interest, the lines of his face relax and turn into the wrinkles we associate with laughter, as he sees the small, frontless shops, the long-skirted merchants, and the sewing, embroidering, cross-legged crowd. The best way, indeed, to view the bazaars is to relax—to relax your ideas of time as well as of pace, and not be in a hurry about anything. Accompany some one who is buying, but do not buy yourself; then you can have a seat on the divan, and even (as a friend of the purchaser) one of those wee cups of black coffee which the merchant offers, and which, whether you like it or not, you take, because it belongs to the scene. Thus seated, you can look about at your ease.

In these days, when every one is rereading the Arabian Nights, the learned in Burton's translation, the outside public in Lady Burton's, even the most unmethodical of writers feels himself, in connection with Cairo, forced towards the inevitable allusion to Haroun. But once within the precincts of the Khan Khaleel, he does not need to have his fancy jogged by Burton or any one else; he thinks of the Arabian Nights instinctively, and "it's a poor tale," indeed, to quote Mrs. Poyser, if he does not meet the one-eyed calendar in the very first booth. But, as has already been said, it is useless to describe. All one can do is to set down a few impressions. One of the first of these is the charming light. The sunshine of Egypt has a great radiance, but it has also—and this is especially visible when one looks across any breadth of landscape—a pleasant quality of softness; it is a radiance which is slightly hazy and slightly golden brown, being in these respects quite unlike the pellucid white light of Greece. The Greeks frown; even the youngest of the handsome men who go about in ballet-like white petticoats and the brimless cap, has the ugly little perpendicular line between the eyes, produced by a constant knitting of the brows. Like the Greek, the Egyptian also is without protection for his eyes; the dragoman wears a small shawl over the fez, which covers the back of the neck and sides of the face, the Bedouins have a hood, but the large majority of the natives are unprotected. It is said that a Mohammedan can have no brim to his turban or tarboosh, because he must place his bare forehead upon the ground when he says his prayers, and this without removing his head-gear (which would be irreverent). However this may be, he goes about in Egypt with the sun in his eyes, though, owing to the softer quality of the light, he does not frown as the Greek frowns. For those who are not Egyptians, however, the light in Cairo sometimes seems too omnipresent; then, for refuge, they can go to the bazaars. The sunshine is here cut off horizontally by thick walls, and from above it is filtered through mats, whose many interstices cause a checker of light and shade in an infinite variety of unexpected patterns on the ground. This ground is watered. Somehow the air is cool; coming in from the bright streets outside is like entering an arbor. The little shops resemble cupboards; their floors are about three feet above the street. They have no doors at the back. When the merchant wishes to close his establishment, he comes out, pulls down the lid, locks it, and goes home. A picturesque characteristic is that in many cases the wares are simply sold here; they are also made, one by one, upon the spot. You can see the brass-workers incising the arabesques of their trays; you can see the armorers making arms, the ribbon-makers making ribbons, the jewellers blowing their forges, the ivory-carvers bending over their delicate task. As soon as each article is finished, it is dusted and placed upon the little shelf above, and then the apprentice sets to work upon a new one. In addition to the light, another thing one notices is the amazing way in which the feet are used. In Cairo one soon becomes as familiar with feet as one is elsewhere with hands; it is not merely that they are bare; it is that the toes appear to be prehensile, like fingers. In the bazaars the embroiderers hold their cloth with their toes; the slipper-makers, the flag-cutters, the brass-workers, the goldsmiths, employ their second set of fingers almost as much as they employ the first. Both the hands and feet of these men are well formed, slender, and delicate, and, by the rules of their religion, they are bathed five times each day.

Mosques are near where they can get water for this duty. For the bazaars are not continuous rows of shops: one comes not infrequently upon the ornamental portal of an old Arabian dwelling-house, upon the forgotten tomb of a sheykh, with its low dome; one passes under stone arches; often one sees the doorway of a mosque. Humble-minded dogs, who look like jackals, prowl about. The populace trudges through the narrow lanes, munching sugar-cane whenever it can get it. Another favorite food is the lettuce-plant; but the leaves, which we use for salad, the Egyptians throw away; it is the stalk that attracts them.

Lettuce-stalks are not rich food, but the bazaars of the people who eat them convey, on the whole, an impression of richness; this is owing to the sumptuousness of the prayer carpets, the gold embroideries, the gleaming silks, the Oriental brass-work with sentences from the Koran, the ivory, the ostrich plumes, the little silver bottles for kohl, the inlaid daggers, the turquoises and pearls, and the beautiful gauzes, a few of them embroidered with the motto, "I do this work for you," and on the reverse side, "And this I do for God." To some persons, the far-penetrating mystic sweetness from the perfume bazaar adds an element also. Here sit the Persian merchants in their delicate silken robes; they weigh incense on tiny scales; they sort the gold-embossed vials of attar of roses; their taper fingers move about amid whimsically small cabinets and chests of drawers filled with ambrosial mysteries. There is magic in names; these merchants are doubly interesting because they come from Ispahan! Scanderoun—there is another; how it rolls off the tongue! We do not wish for exact geographical descriptions of these places; that would spoil all. We wish to chant, like Kit Marlowe's Tamburlaine (and with similar indefiniteness):

"Is it not passing brave to be a king,

And march in triumph through Persepolis?"

"So will I ride through Samarcanda streets,

... to Babylon, my lords; to Babylon!"