The afternoon being far advanced, I hoped I might do better, with more light, on the following morning. It was a long weary tramp we had back to the rest-house, for no trolley awaited us at the rail-head, in spite of the most solemn promises that it should be there. We were more fortunate the next day, as the donkeys were kindly lent us, and we were able to be back at the convent in fairly good time.

Though I was in the church nearly the whole day, I witnessed no service, and remarking on this to Jones, he told me that during the weeks he had worked there he could never remember one having taken place.

What on earth had the eight other monks who resided here to do? They were supplied with corn and beans by the charity of others, and all initiative to do anything for themselves seemed to have left them during their lethargic existence. Possibly, when the dust of the old Prior will have returned to the dust of the desert around him, some one younger and more energetic may put some life into the Sleepy Hollow.

CHAPTER X
THE MOSQUE OF ES-SALIH TALAI

I RETURNED to Cairo little the richer in artistic material, but feeling much the better for the few days of desert air. Though Cairo stands on the fringe of a desert, the three-quarters of a million of its inhabitants are bound to vitiate its air, and they have certainly polluted its soil. No drainage system as yet carries off the sewage from the main part of the native city, where the dust is often laid by the slops emptied on the roadway. It is true that the Tanzím employs a large number of scavengers; but their efforts are chiefly confined to the modern quarters, where there is some hope of dealing with so difficult a task. The Arab’s ideas as to road-cleaning, when he is left to himself, is to sweep the dust about rather than to clear it away; the scavenger is therefore the greatest nuisance of all the nuisances the sketcher has to contend with. When taken unawares, a sweep from one of these idiots’ brooms may cover with dust your drawing and your pallet before you can stop him or get out of his way. Were it not for the sun, which sterilises this dust, a large population could never have existed here.

ARAB SCHOOL

[View larger image]