Part 17 (2/2)
”Everything is novel and interesting in this busy thoroughfare,” said one of our party. ”I suggest that we move along very slowly and stop frequently. See that lemonade vender with the bra.s.s tank strapped to his back. When he bent forward the water flowed from the spout over his shoulder into the cup he held in his hand, without his touching the tank. He is waiting for his customer to produce the pennies that apparently cannot be found.”
The street scenes in the Muski were so kaleidoscopic that it is impossible to give more than a suggestion of their character. A few representative scenes can be given and around these the imagination must picture a constantly changing throng, not hurrying as in busy American cities, but moving leisurely in the Eastern manner. The crowd was orderly, but not quiet, for tongues were in constant use. Merchants and customers chattered and parleyed. Venders of licorice water and sweetmeats did not permit their presence to be overlooked, and donkeys occasionally joined in the chorus. Each figure unfamiliar to our Western eyes, in turban or in fez, in slippers or in bare feet, in scant gown of cotton or full robe of silk, was a subject worthy of being considered individually.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGURES UNFAMILIAR TO OUR WESTERN EYES.]
A baby, astride its mother's shoulder, clung to her head while she walked along and made her purchases, apparently unconscious of her child. A bare-footed water carrier, bearing on his back an unwieldy goatskin distended with its contents, cried, ”Water for sale.” A donkey boy pushed aside the crowd to let the closely veiled, silk-mantled lady rider pa.s.s through on her caparisoned donkey. Muscular fellahs, or peasants, in brown skull caps, and blue s.h.i.+rts which reached to their ankles, their feet bare, their teeth remarkable for whiteness, sauntered along chewing stalks of sugar-cane. Women of the poorer cla.s.s pa.s.sed by, wearing scanty gowns of plain blue cotton, heavy copper bracelets, and nose ornaments of bra.s.s, which held in place the veils that covered the lower part of their faces but did not conceal the beauty spots tattooed on their foreheads. A funeral procession, with professional mourners chanting monotonously a hymn to Allah, followed a casket borne on the shoulders of men. And these curious scenes, which we tried to catch with the camera, formed but unimportant parts in an ever-moving picture in which were intermingled the costumes, colors, and facial characteristics of dervishes, priests, and soldiers, of Arabs, Nubians, Turks, and Americans.
[Ill.u.s.tration: IN THE COURT OF THE ALABASTER MOSQUE IS A FOUNTAIN.]
The Muski and the crooked little pa.s.sage-ways that intersected it were lined with small shops where many of the dealers sat cross-legged on platforms within arm's reach of their stock of goods. The stores for the sale of each kind of goods had a special quarter of their own. At one place we saw the shops of the coppersmiths with stocks of bright kettles, pitchers, basins, trays, and pans; at another, the stores of the shoemakers, where hundreds of bright red slippers dangled on lines overhead. In one crooked alley, but four feet in width, we watched the goldsmiths, squatted in narrow quarters, busily at work with brazier and blowpipes and curious little tools, hammering, twisting, and welding chains of gold, and making ornaments of silver filagree.
We bought souvenirs at the stalls of the fez dealers, where but one style of headgear was sold, always red in color, and with prices varying according to the quality of the cloth and lining. We stopped at the warerooms of the bra.s.s-smiths, which were larger in size than the ordinary shops, and found these filled with an array of hammered trays, censers, bowls, tankards, curiously wrought lamps, and ornamented candlesticks, that attracted many buyers. We looked into the little factories of the saddlers, which were gay with red and yellow trappings for donkeys and horses, and where the saddlers were st.i.tching with bright colored-threads.
The light open-front workshops of the makers of hempen camel harness were hung with the twisted rope and ta.s.sel adornments of variegated colors with which the Bedouin delights to array his s.h.i.+p of the desert.
The stores of the grocers were adorned with long decorated candles suspended by the wicks. We saw hundreds of tiny bazaars for the sale of perfumes, placed side by side in a narrow lane where the air was scented with musk and attar of roses; and we walked through narrow streets where, each kind in its own section, earthen water jars, lanterns, books, ornamented leather work, gems, and precious stones were displayed for sale.
The guide insisted that we should spend a little time in the carpet stores in a side street. We yielded to his entreaties, and were surprised by the immense stacks of exquisite silk rugs; but to the courteous salesman's offer to show us everything in his place, we were compelled by lack of time to reply, ”Another day.” When we arrived at the more prominent silk bazaars, the ladies wished to buy some light shawls interwoven with gold thread and table covers embroidered with silk. They soon found out, however, that, as in the other Oriental cities, much time would be required for bargaining, and so the shopping was put off until the sight-seeing was over.
CHAPTER XIV.
LUXOR AND KARNAK.
The Nile party No. 2, consisting of forty-two persons, left Cairo on Friday morning, March thirteenth, in sleeping cars. The cars were painted white outside, finished in cherry inside, and divided into rooms, each room having two comfortable berths and a washstand, and a pa.s.sageway along the side of the car. We ate our dinner that evening and breakfast the following morning in a modern dining car attached to the train.
At nine o'clock on Sat.u.r.day morning the train arrived at our destination, the town of Luxor, about four hundred miles south of Cairo.
The Hotel de Luxor, at which we stayed, was situated in the midst of a large irrigated garden where palms cast a grateful shade and roses and lilies bloomed among tropical plants. Within this hotel, built with thick stone walls and floored with flagstones, the tourists found a pleasant refuge from the heat when they returned from excursions into the desert. In its cool dining room, decorated in the old Egyptian style with figures of G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses, with lotus blossoms and papyrus flowers, with hieroglyphics and symbols, painted on frieze, walls, and window sash, the tourists were waited on by white-robed, white-turbaned, red-sashed, red-slippered natives.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HUGE PROPYLON OR OUTER GATEWAY AT KARNAK.]
The flies were a great pest. They were numerous and annoying, although we found that they did not bite so hard nor tickle the skin so much as do the flies in our country. Among the first purchases made by the tourists in Luxor were fly brushes made of palm fiber or of white horsehair with wooden handles and loops to attach them to the wrist. It was amusing to see English, German, and American tourists switching at the flies with their horsetail brushes while the natives pa.s.sively endured the crawling insects. Egyptian mothers in the village permitted the flies to creep over the babies' faces and settle in cl.u.s.ters around their eyes without attempting to drive the tormentors away, either too lazy to do so or desirous that the babies should become hardened to the annoyance. We pitied the infants, however, and some of the ladies of our party became very indignant over the indifference--cruelty they called it--of the mothers. We saw many older children afterwards whose skin appeared to be insensible to the tickling feet; for they made no attempt to brush away the flies which covered their faces.
[Ill.u.s.tration: I. WALKED ALONG THE AVENUE OF SPHINXES.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: II. THE LITTLE MOSQUE COULD NOT BE PURCHASED.]
Our party was joined during the morning by another party of tourists.
After luncheon we all proceeded to the end of the shaded garden, where, at the gateway, we found Mahmoud, the dragoman who had been selected to take charge of the expedition. His a.s.sistants were a.s.sembled there and with them were eighty donkey boys, each with his donkey, a number of jinrikisha men with carts, and chair men with chairs. The donkey boys were of all ages from lads scarcely in their teens to veterans of three-score years. The donkeys were of various sizes but the largest were not over four feet high. The jinrikishas had each two attendants, one man to pull in the shafts of the cart and one to push. The chairs borne on poles on the shoulders of men had each six carriers, four to carry and two as a relay. Chairs or jinrikishas were chosen by the tourists whose bodies required careful treatment and by those who preferred to travel in luxury. The donkeys, however, were selected by the majority, who considered it a far greater pleasure to ride.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THEY BROUGHT WATER IN GOATSKINS FROM THE NILE.]
”This way! this way! ladies and gentlemen, if you please!” exclaimed Mahmoud, and the merry cavalcade of eighty tourists and one hundred attendants started off through the village, donkey boys chattering, donkeys braying, and riders gaily chaffing one another on their appearance in the saddle; the long-legged professor holding up his feet to prevent them from sc.r.a.ping the ground and the jolly stout parson mounted on the smallest donkey. Each donkey was followed by a donkey boy who whipped the patient beast, jabbed him with a sharp pointed stick, twisted the animal's tail, or talked to him in Arabic, when it was necessary to urge him to greater speed. When urged, the donkeys were fast walkers. But whether the donkeys were walking, trotting, or galloping, the boys with little exertion managed to keep close to their heels, and the jinrikisha men and chair men could keep up such a rapid speed with their loads that it was difficult to leave them in the rear.
[Ill.u.s.tration: BUILT OVER FORTY CENTURIES AGO.]
My donkey boy, aged about sixteen, told me that his name was Abda Mohammed and that the medium sized white donkey on which I rode was known as Alice Lovell. With broad smiles which showed a perfect set of white teeth, he repeated over and over again, at intervals during the short ride, ”Alice Lovell, nice donkey, good donkey. Abda, nice boy, good donkey boy,” doubtless thinking that if I could fully realize that fact the backsheesh at parting would be larger.
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