The Curtain Falls very slowly.
UNDER EASTERN SKIES
(A Romantic Drama suitable for performance at His Majesty’s Theatre.)
First Scene.
—A street in Damascus, copied, with meticulous exactitude, from the Byway of Beggars in that famous city. Even the smells are there—thanks to an ingenious contrivance of concealed sprays, by means of which the appropriate odour is insinuated into the nostrils of the audience.
A party of camels, an elephant and a couple of giraffes, are loitering about in the charge of officials from the Zoological Gardens disguised as Bedouin Sheiks. Ali Baba, Sinbad the Sailor, Shibli Bagarag, and other familiar Eastern figures are exchanging hoarse Oriental salutations from their houses and shops. Goats, sheep, goatwomen, shepherds, etc., complete the picture.
Ali Baba (in a wailing shriek): Inshallah, wullahy, eywallah.
Shibli Bagarag (lamenting): Eywah! Traadisveribadahii! (He beats his breast).
A Passer-by (indignantly addressing a stolid camel-driver): Bismillah, O Son of my Uncle, have thy camels, on whom be peace, acquired a firman investing in them the sole use of this highway?
The Outraged Camel-driver (forgetting his part and falling back on the language of Regent’s Park): ’Ere. Look ’ere——