“You know Cairo, I think?”
“Many years ago I knew it well,” the other answered.
The professor smiled.
“If you had known it well many hundred years ago,” he said, “it would do just as well. The places worth seeing haven’t changed.”
Once out of the European section, and in the Arab quarter, Perry found the real city of his imaginings, with its queer crooked streets, blind walls and a maze of windows masked with wooden trellis-work through which one could look outside from within, but not inside from without. Perry plied Antoine with questions almost without ceasing, and it was a very weary guide who safely deposited a much-excited boy in the hotel shortly before dinner-time. The lad was eager to go out again in the evening, but sleep took precedence, and he rioted in dreams till morning.
The next day, again with Antoine, Perry went to see the great citadel, which had been built by Saladin, the Saracen conqueror immortalized in “The Talisman.” He visited the great Mohammedan university, entered a score of mosques, in every case leaving his shoes outside as is required by custom, and took particular delight in one old place known as the “Needle’s Eye,” which had been walled up recently.
“Why was it closed, Antoine?” he asked. His informant smiled.
“There was a tradition,” was the reply, “that although it was quite narrow, every one who was honest could squeeze through. Ismail, one of the governors, was very stout, and, evidently having more faith in the laws of physics than in superstition, decided that he would not put his reputation for honesty to the test of his bulk. Accordingly he had it walled up.”
Under Antoine’s guidance, Perry quickly saw most of the worth-while parts of Cairo, and his cup of delight brimmed over when his guide secured permission for him to see Cairo at night, and took him through the old bazaars, agleam with light and merriment. Antoine skillfully guided him through the unspoiled native quarters, and avoided the half-and-half tourist section where a forced and unnatural gayety gives strangers a false idea of the old capital of Egypt under the caliphs.
“Perry,” said his uncle to him the following morning, “you’d better come along with me to-day. I’ve had good news. The Survey is going to lend me much of their equipment and one of their experts will accompany us. The Viceroy has been exceedingly kind and given me every opportunity I could have wished, and instead of being compelled to spend a week in Cairo, we’re going to start over the desert to-morrow.”