V
AT THE CORNER GROCERY
It is not a very long distance from the Arab coffee-shop where we left our friend smoking, to the grocer. The streets are very narrow and unless we are very careful that camel will crowd us to the wall or those water-skins on the white donkey wet our clothes—see how they drip! Well, one turn more and here we are. The grocer in the picture on the next page is leaning on his elbow waiting for a customer. And if he keeps his groceries as free from flies and ants as he does his spotless white turban we will buy our day's supplies here. The shops in Arabia are not very large and they have no place for customers except outside. Sometimes there is a sort of raised seat or bench on which the purchaser sits when he bargains for something; but generally you have to stand up outside while the crowds push and the traffic goes on. One curious custom is that all the shops of one kind cluster close together in one street or section of the town. You will see for example in one street a long row of shops where they sell drugs and perfumery; in another place there are only hardware merchants; again a whole street of nothing but grocers. I think the reason is that Arabs love to bargain and to beat down prices and so it is easier to have all the merchants of one kind close together. At any rate this arrangement makes it quite convenient for the purchaser. Indeed it is becoming somewhat customary to group the shops in this way in some of your Western cities. Occidental civilisation can learn some things from the Orient!
ARAB GROCER.
Our shopkeeper has a mixed lot of groceries in his shop; many things which you would find at your grocers' he has never heard of. Everything is topsy-turvy. Just fancy how strange to hang up the sugar in a row of cones on strings like sausages! Do you see them on the ceiling of the shop in our picture? That is the way white sugar comes wrapped from France and is sold in Arabia. A sugar barrel would soon be full of ants in this country; but when it hangs up on a string the ants have a hard time getting it away. Maybe there is a suggestion here for your homes if you are troubled with ants.
In those big Arab baskets the grocer keeps his carrots and other vegetables; carrots are white in Arabia and there are curious vegetables of which you have never heard.
Do you see the bottles and tin boxes on his shelves? Those are for spices; pepper, cinnamon, nutmegs, curry-powder and such things of which Arab housewives are very fond.