As he walks along he calls out sometimes, “Moie, moie!” but more frequently some Arabic words that mean, “O, ye thirsty! O, ye thirsty!” and occasionally he adds something about the delights of a cup of cool, delicious water, and sounds the praises of the special lot that he carries.
I was told by persons who understand the language, that there is much poetry in its every-day use, and the water carrier, as I have just explained, is poetical in his appeals, and so are the street peddlers of all grades. The venders of vegetables, of candy, of bread, and other edibles do not, as a general thing, name the articles they have for sale, but they address appeals to the hungry, allude to the tortures of hunger, and the pleasure of satisfying it. The seller of shoes appeals to the unshod, and beseeches them to go barefoot no longer. The seller of tobacco calls to those who smoke and love the fragrant Latakiah, or the invigorating Koranny. “O, ye man,” “O, ye woman,” “O, ye old man,” is shouted by your donkey driver as he guides you through the crowded streets, and he changes it to “O, ye people,” when the number is so great that he cannot afford to address them in detail.
"Backsheesh, O, Howadji,” (a present, O, gentlemen), is the appeal of the beggar to the passing stranger. The dealer in fresh clover for donkeys’ food chants, “From green fields I bring the odors of fresh verdure,” and the squinting merchants in the Perfume Bazaar vaunt the praises of their wares in words that fill the Moslem mind with thoughts of Paradise, and bear it away from prosaic thoughts and duties of every-day life.
Somebody has said that to find a Princess Scheherazade, you have only to scratch the back of your Cairene donkey boy, and with a slight encouragement he will begin to talk in the strain of the Arabian Nights. I found it so to some extent in my acquaintance with the Egyptian capital. Most of the donkey drivers that frequent the fronts of the hotels can speak English, and some of them quite well. They are as a class bright and intelligent, and can be relied upon for information as to the customs of the people. Their knowledge of localities is sufficient for all the purposes for which a guide is usually employed, and as soon as our party, in its collective capacity, were through with sight-seeing, we fell back upon the donkey boys, and dismissed our professional guide.
Whether the Cairenes indulge to-day in stories like that of the Enchanted Horse, and Sinbad the Sailor, I am unable to say, but in the matter of scandal they are quite up to the Occidental mark. One of the donkey boys at the hotel told me a variety of incidents connected with the harems, and some of them are of a very apochryphal character.