CHAPTER V
OF THE OLD AND THE NEW CAIRO, AND OF A VISIT TO THE SHEYKH AMMIN SAHEIME
IT is unfortunate that an artist, residing in Cairo for the purpose of painting its people and its buildings, cannot live in the city where his chief interests lie. For there are at present two Cairos: the one an old oriental city, the other a nondescript modern European town, placed, as it were by accident, between the Nile and its more venerable neighbour. The foreigner who speaks of Cairo alludes to the great blocks of buildings and the palatial hotels which form this modern town, and he usually terms those other parts which he has scarcely seen—the native quarters. The true Cairo, and the one of which we speak, lies in a rough parallelogram between the walls running from the Citadel to the Bab el-Futouh at the eastern extremity and the Khaleeg, or the old canal now filled in, on the west. The northern and southern extremities end at the mosques of Hakim and of Ibn Tulún respectively. Two outlying bits still remain north and south of the new quarters, and are known as Bulak and Old Cairo. There are remains here and there of a yet older Cairo, which stood on the south-west of the present city.
I should dearly love to live in that part spoken of as the native quarters, instead of having to live at some distance and amongst surroundings which do not lend themselves to pictorial treatment. I had the opportunity to live in a beautiful old house which has been carefully restored under the superintendence of Herz Bey, and which stands in the very heart of the old town. The inconvenience of housekeeping, the putting in of necessary furniture, and, above all, the insanitary condition of its immediate neighbourhood, decided me not to avail myself of this opportunity. There would also have been the fear of fire. The beautiful mushrbiyeh work which encloses all the windows, and is as dry as touchwood, might at any moment be set on fire through the action of a careless servant. The house is a perfect specimen of an old Cairene dwelling, and it has been wisely repaired and is kept in order at the expense of the Wakfs administration. Possibly restrictions as to the lighting of fires would have been imposed on me, which would have necessitated a journey to the European quarters whenever I wished for a hot meal.
No, one cannot live here surrounded with what one loves to paint; one may remain a lifetime in Cairo and not be of it.
The joy of having bright sunny weather in midwinter is very great, and it is also a pleasure to meet friends at the club or hotels, and for those inclined that way balls and parties can be attended on most evenings during the season. Personally I would forego most of these things to live more in touch with the life of the old city. As an illustration of how little the inhabitants of the European quarters are concerned with what takes place in Cairo proper, I will give the following:—
While I was painting in the Suk es-Selah, or the gun-makers’ bazaar, an old house fell in not many paces from where I was sitting. As the house was inhabited, willing hands were soon on the spot to assist in excavating those who might be buried under the ruins. Help was also soon available from official quarters, and during the course of the day five dead bodies were unearthed. I did not expect this to be given as important a space in the newspapers—edited and circulating in the modern quarters—as an account of the last ball at Shepheard’s would have received; but I thought a line describing an event which cost the lives of five people might have appeared amongst the smaller items of news. There was no mention of it in any of them. When I remarked on this to some European residents, I was casually told that a house felling down was of constant occurrence, and a lady remarked on hearing of the five Arabs who had been killed, ‘Il en reste encore bien assez.’ From the little interest shown, one might have supposed that this event had taken place somewhere in China, instead of within a couple of miles from the hotel we were in.
I witnessed the funeral procession of a noted Sheykh of Islam this last winter. The cortège was more than a mile in length, and thousands of people crowded the streets to pay their last respects to so eminent a coreligionist. A roar of voices, repeating the profession of the Mohammedan faith, rose from every quarter of the Arab city. I looked for some information in the Cairo papers, but not a mention of it did I find. The Arabic papers were doubtless full of the event; but as few Europeans, though they may speak the colloquial language fluently, can read the written Arabic, the news of the old town rarely spreads to the new.
The older residents are seldom seen in the old parts of the city, and that is easy to understand, for familiarity with things eastern breeds an indifference with the majority, even if it does not descend to contempt. The surprise is that so few are met there of the thousands of people who flock to Egypt for a short season. A drive down the Mousky—one of Cairo’s least interesting streets—a visit to the Khan Khalil, then a walk round three or four mosques and a view from the citadel. After this a feeling of satisfaction that the ‘native quarters’ have been thoroughly done. The fear of smells seems to haunt them, for the hands not carrying a kodak or fly-whisp often hold a handkerchief near their noses. Bad smells are to be found for those who seek them, though not as many as in most old European towns.
These might be removed to advantage. But how much would Cairo not lose of its charm if, deprived of the sense of smell, one wandered through its bazaars or loitered about its market-places? I cannot think of the coffee-stalls without their aroma of moka and of latakiyeh. The spice bazaar recalls the warm land breezes from some tropic isle. Would the colour of the fruit-stalls charm the eye equally, were the scent gone from their piles of russet and gold? Even the smell of tan seems to enhance the sight of the brilliantly hued skins in the leather-workers’ bazaar.
Though each sense may occasionally be shocked, each plays its part in the enjoyment of all things. To any one keenly interested in this mediæval city, and who has studied its buildings, the eye is unhappily more often now shocked than the nose. Uglinesses which are hardly noticeable in the European quarters are slowly invading the old parts of the city. I have seen many a beautiful latticed window replaced by ready-made imported sashes, or where the seclusion of the hareem is necessary, an ugly fretwork in lieu of the turned mushrbiyeh which gave so much character to the Cairene dwelling. Streets formerly covered in with rafters and matting are now exposed to the baking sun, so as to allow more light on the cheap European goods behind the plate-glass windows. The official mind is obsessed with the idea that official work needs trousers, and all aspirants to official billets don these ugly garments and abandon the graceful kuftân and the flowing gibbeh. The same thing has occurred in the government schools.