We entered the Khan and found a square court yard surrounded by rooms opening upon it, where the merchants who come from other cities display their wares and sleep at night.
The Khan, or caravansary, is of less consequence now than formerly, throughout the parts of the East that have been invaded by railways; in Aleppo, Bagdad and other inland places, its character is still retained. A caravan arrives in a city, and a merchant belonging to it seeks a caravansary, hires a room and displays his goods to whoever wishes to buy. He pays a small rental and takes his meals where he likes; in the smaller towns the master of the Khan will supply him with food, but not so in the large cities. The furniture of the Khan consists generally of matting and fleas in about equal portions; sometimes there is no matting, but the fleas are sure to be on hand, and on the entire body as well. Orientals do not mind them, and I am half inclined to believe that they would be unhappy without those nimble little attendants.
The bazaars in the immediate vicinity of the Khan Haleel are mainly devoted to the sale of pipe stems, coffee pots, and various odds and ends of nearly everything. You can buy tobacco, old coins, boots, and jewelry; and there are several shops whose native owners are devoted to the sale of European nick-nacks.
Further on, you come to the jewelry bazaar; we entered it by a low door, which had a flooring of soft mud, that induced some very careful walking and brought one of our party to temporary grief.
The jewelry bazaar is a curious place. The street is about six feet wide, in some places not over five, and you stand in the street or sit on the front edge of the shop while making your bargains. Not more than two or three persons should go there together; we were six, and we blocked up the whole way, so that it was difficult for us to see anything and for others to get past. The shops were from four to eight feet square, and the stock was partially displayed in a little show-case a foot square and the same in height, and partially kept in a safe in a rear corner. Generally when we examined the articles in the case, the merchant, who was squatted near it, opened his safe and took out something from it. The diminutive extent of the shop enabled him to reach safe, show-case, and everything else, without leaving the place where he was seated. In most cases, when he was obliged to move about, he did it without rising. He hopped along very much as a tame seal moves about in a menagerie.
The selection of jewelry is not large. It consists of ear-drops, brooches and bracelets of fine filigree work, that nearly always includes a crescent, with a few stars of gold or little drops of real or imitation turquoise. Some of the sets are so arranged, that the necklace and brooch form one piece, that can be taken apart so that the necklace will form a pair of bracelets and leave the brooch to be worn separately. Some are of gold, some of silver, and some of silver gilded, and the sets are generally quite cheap in comparison with the prices of jewelry in America and England.
You must bargain a great deal, and if you pay anything like the price asked at first, you are sure to be cheated. Never offer more than half what they ask, and you will do better not to offer more than a third to start with; the merchant will decline at first; then he will fall slowly, and after a time he will be about half way between your first offer and his. You can then come up a little, and if your offer is at all reasonable, he will close with, you, though frequently not till after you have walked away.
To show what can be done by judicious bargaining, let me cite an instance.