BEARING ON HIS BACK AN UNWIELDY GOATSKIN.
"Am I?" he replied. "Well, I will leave the millions and give you something more familiar. The Capitol at Washington is seven hundred and fifty feet long,—just the length of each side of the base of Cheops,—but the Capitol is not half that in width. The Capitol covers an area of three and one-half acres; the Pyramid spreads over thirteen acres. The apex of the Pyramid is one hundred and sixty feet higher than the head of Freedom on the dome at Washington. The Capitol is a hollow structure; the Pyramid, a solid mass, excepting the comparatively small chamber of the tomb and passage ways. The stone used in the construction of Cheops would be sufficient to build the Capitol and the Library of Congress, and there would be enough material left over for capitol buildings in each of the states in the Union. When you have time, calculate how many miles of stone wall might be constructed with ninety-two million cubic feet of stone. It is only by comparison that we can comprehend the stupendous bulk of these magnificent monuments, and realize the prodigious amount of labor that was required for their erection."
It was but a short drive from the Hotel Grand Continental to the Muski, the narrow street that is the centre of the bazaar district, a district which every visitor is sure to find soon after his arrival in Cairo. When we entered the crowded Muski, we left the broad avenues of the modern city behind and walked in narrow Oriental streets through which carriages are not allowed to go.
"Everything is novel and interesting in this busy thoroughfare," said one of our party. "I suggest that we move along very slowly and stop frequently. See that lemonade vender with the brass tank strapped to his back. When he bent forward the water flowed from the spout over his shoulder into the cup he held in his hand, without his touching the tank. He is waiting for his customer to produce the pennies that apparently cannot be found."
The street scenes in the Muski were so kaleidoscopic that it is impossible to give more than a suggestion of their character. A few representative scenes can be given and around these the imagination must picture a constantly changing throng, not hurrying as in busy American cities, but moving leisurely in the Eastern manner. The crowd was orderly, but not quiet, for tongues were in constant use. Merchants and customers chattered and parleyed. Venders of licorice water and sweetmeats did not permit their presence to be overlooked, and donkeys occasionally joined in the chorus. Each figure unfamiliar to our Western eyes, in turban or in fez, in slippers or in bare feet, in scant gown of cotton or full robe of silk, was a subject worthy of being considered individually.
FIGURES UNFAMILIAR TO OUR WESTERN EYES.
A baby, astride its mother's shoulder, clung to her head while she walked along and made her purchases, apparently unconscious of her child. A bare-footed water carrier, bearing on his back an unwieldy goatskin distended with its contents, cried, "Water for sale." A donkey boy pushed aside the crowd to let the closely veiled, silk-mantled lady rider pass through on her caparisoned donkey. Muscular fellahs, or peasants, in brown skull caps, and blue shirts which reached to their ankles, their feet bare, their teeth remarkable for whiteness, sauntered along chewing stalks of sugar-cane. Women of the poorer class passed by, wearing scanty gowns of plain blue cotton, heavy copper bracelets, and nose ornaments of brass, which held in place the veils that covered the lower part of their faces but did not conceal the beauty spots tattooed on their foreheads. A funeral procession, with professional mourners chanting monotonously a hymn to Allah, followed a casket borne on the shoulders of men. And these curious scenes, which we tried to catch with the camera, formed but unimportant parts in an ever-moving picture in which were intermingled the costumes, colors, and facial characteristics of dervishes, priests, and soldiers, of Arabs, Nubians, Turks, and Americans.
