FROM the end of March, when the wind shifts to the south, we get a taste of summer’s heat. The talk in the hotels is of home-returning steamers, and Cook’s offices are besieged with visitors anxious to secure early bookings. The Hamseen, as this unpleasant wind is called, causes a rapid rise in the temperature, and while it lasts the whole aspect of northern Egypt changes. The sky partakes of the colour of the desert, and has something of the look of a slight London fog; the sun also reminds us of the pale orange sphere visible when Londoners remark on its being a fine day. Apart from these appearances the sensations felt are very different. Neither moisture nor smoke give that yellowish look here; it is the sand which the wind collects as it blows across the desert in its northern course. As the wind increases, so the temperature rises, and the extreme dryness of the air causes those unpleasant sensations felt with the first symptoms of fever.

THE STORE OF NASSÁN

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Cairo becomes unpaintable, the sun hardly casts a shadow through the thickening clouds of dust, and such shadow as it is has none of that blue reflected light which gives the true shadow quality. Did not experience teach me that it is only a passing phase, my inclination would be to pack up and leave by the first available steamer and join the migration to the north. It is useless to hunt about the streets for subjects; for even if one were found sufficiently attractive, the dust would render the work an impossibility. Some subject of a still-life nature in the shelter of the bazaars or an interior must be found, unless one makes up one’s mind to stay indoors until the wind sets in a more favourable quarter.

The word hamseen means fifty, and is given to this wind because of the fifty days during which spells of it may be expected. If street rows are more frequent, if irritability or headaches are complained of, the Cairene shrugs his shoulders and says ‘Hamseen.’ It was a day of that kind that took me once more to the Khan Khalil. I had often been attracted by a lamp-shop there, but had put off painting it on account of the elaborate detail, and doubts whether the results would be proportionate to the work involved. A corner well sheltered from the wind and an obliging shopman induced me to set up my easel. Should the wind change, I could always leave it and return when the next hamseen would make work impossible elsewhere.

Every type of Egyptian lamp hung round the entrance, and lamps and lampstands lined the walls of the passage leading into the store beyond. There, in the deeper shades, the sparkle of polished metal suggested innumerable lamps of which the near ones were samples. Brass bowls and trays, teapots and candlesticks, filled up the spaces where lamps could not be hung. With the buff-coloured stone of the building, this metal-work made a harmonious whole. To pull this together so as not to lose the breadth of effect would be no easy task. During the third day in this corner of the bazaar a ray of sunlight heralded a return of beautiful weather; a drop in the temperature and the feel of one’s skin were enough to tell one that the wind blew no more from the south, and that once more the cool breezes from the sea ran counter to the flow of the Nile. The little sunlight which found its way between the awnings and matting which roof in this bazaar was enough to alter the whole effect of my subject. My drawing looked leathery and sodden compared to the rich glow which lit up the shop, and proved that even the nearest bit of still-life is better when the presence of the sun is felt. I sponged out more lamps in two minutes than I had put in in two days, and this corner knew me no more on hamseen days. It was, after all, only during beautiful days that I could complete the drawing which illustrates these pages.

Nassán is the proprietor of the shop, and Nassán seemed much exercised in his mind why I should have so ruthlessly made away with so many lamps, though they were only on paper. What did a ray of sunlight matter as long as the name of Nassán was conspicuous on the signboard which hung over the entrance? As new lamps replaced the old, Nassán’s interest in my drawing reawakened, and overtures were even made for its acquisition. I told him I wished to take it to England, as I wanted illustrations for a book I was about to write, and he, not wishing to lose a gratis advertisement, got me to promise to say that he was prepared to supply any one with as many lamps as they could possibly wish. He had recently furnished the Heliopolis hotel with three hundred metal ones, and his stock was not nearly exhausted.

I looked up Mustapha, the silk-merchant with whom I had spent an interesting evening during the Hasaneyn festival. While we sipped our coffee on the mastaba of his shop, we reverted to the tragic story of the Irishman O’Donald and his first meeting with the princess Zohra. Her history has been continued during this narrative, and my readers may remember that we last saw her settled down in Constantinople under the protection of the Sultan of Turkey. How her hatred of Abbas (the then ruling Viceroy) outlived her thwarted love for O’Donald will now be related. From the account given by the German engineer, Max Eyth, I was able to tell the silk-merchant more of what happened than he knew; for Eyth had the details from Halim Pasha, Zohra’s own brother, who was an important actor in the drama. But nothing to incriminate his sister fell from Halim’s lips; the part she played was related by the servant Ramés, from whom Eyth obtained most of her history. Why no English edition of Max Eyth’s Hinter Pflug und Schraubstock should exist is a mystery to the present writer.