The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Artist in Egypt, by Walter Tyndale This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: An Artist in Egypt Author: Walter Tyndale Release Date: November 25, 2018 [EBook #58348] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ARTIST IN EGYPT *** Produced by Claudine Corbasson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) An Artist in Egypt Cover Frontispiece THE SPHINX BY MOONLIGHT View larger image Title page View larger image AN ARTIST IN EGYPT BY WALTER TYNDALE R.I. HODDER & STOUGHTON NEW YORK & LONDON I PREFACE ENDEAVOURED, in a former book on Egypt, to give my first impressions while the glamour of the East had not been dimmed by familiarity; and the kind reception of that, my first literary attempt, has encouraged me to write again after spending some years in the Nile Valley. Though first impressions may have a charm which familiarity lacks, it would be astonishing if a country so full of beauty, and of such varied interests as is Egypt, had caused familiarity to breed contempt. I may safely say that it has not had that result. A lengthened stay has certainly added to my experiences as well as to my stock of drawings, and I trust it has also given me some insight into the character of the people amidst whom I dwelt. Mediæval Cairo is doubtless year by year the poorer by many picturesque ‘bits’ which have vanished. But Cairo is a large city, and happily many years may elapse before artists will cease to go there for material. What is still untouched by the jerry builder, or has not been allowed to fall into ruin, is probably more beautiful than anything other oriental cities can show. Less change is seen in the smaller towns, and the villages are much the same in aspect as when the Saracen invaders first occupied the valley of the Nile. Every season adds to the knowledge of Ancient Egypt, and gives us something which for centuries lay hid beneath the desert sands. It was my good fortune to spend some winters at Thebes while some of the most interesting of recent discoveries were made, and through the courtesy of Mr. Weigall, the Chief Inspector of Upper Egypt, I was enabled to dwell and do my work in these congenial surroundings. I have also to thank him for the unique opportunities which our desert journey, from the Nile to the Red Sea, offered; of all my experiences in Egypt, none has given me more pleasure in recalling. Haslemere, 1912. CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I CAIRO REVISITED 1 CHAPTER II RENEWAL OF MY ACQUAINTANCE WITH MOHAMMED BROWN AND SOME REFLECTIONS ON MATRIMONY 11 CHAPTER III THE MOSQUE OF MURISTÂN KALAÛN, MY EXPERIENCE WITH THE FAKÍR, AND A DIGRESSION ON THE SUBJECT OF DERVISHES 22 CHAPTER IV THE FESTIVAL OF THE ‘HASANEYN’ AND THE STORY OF THE PRINCESS ZOHRA 31 CHAPTER V OF THE OLD AND THE NEW CAIRO, AND OF A VISIT TO THE SHEYKH AMMIN SAHEIME 43 CHAPTER VI MY SECOND VISIT TO THE SHEYKH AND MY EXPERIENCES WITH AN UNFAITHFUL SERVANT 57 CHAPTER VII IN WHICH I GET ANOTHER SERVANT AND HUNT FOR A CROCODILE; ALSO A CONTINUATION OF THE STORY OF PRINCESS ZOHRA 67 CHAPTER VIII OF A CAIRO CAFÉ AND OTHER MATTERS 78 CHAPTER IX THE COPTIC CONVENTS OF WADI NATRUN 90 CHAPTER X THE MOSQUE OF ES-SALIH TALAI 104 CHAPTER XI THE BLUE MOSQUE AND KASR-ESH-SHEMA 116 CHAPTER XII THE SPHINX, AND A DISSERTATION ON TOMMY ATKINS 127 CHAPTER XIII THE HAMSEEN, THE LAMP-SHOP, AND THE ACCESSION OF SAID PASHA 136 CHAPTER XIV MOHAMMEDAN FESTIVALS: THE HOLY CARPET—THE FAST OF RAMADAN AND THE ASHURA 151 CHAPTER XV MORE RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES, SPRING’S AWAKENING, AND THE CAIRENE HOUSE OF COUNT ZOGHEB 170 CHAPTER XVI DER EL-BAHRI, AND SOME INCIDENTS WHICH TOOK PLACE DURING MY STAY THERE 178 CHAPTER XVII DER EL-BAHRI (continued) 194 CHAPTER XVIII THE CROSS DESERT JOURNEY TO KOSSEIR 206 CHAPTER XIX THE VALLEY OF HAMMAMÂT 221 CHAPTER XX THE WADI FOWAKIYEH AND BÎR HAGI SULIMAN 231 CHAPTER XXI KOSSEIR 245 CHAPTER XXII EDFU AND THE QUARRIES OF GEBEL SILSILEH 258 CHAPTER XXIII MY EXPERIENCES AS AN INMATE OF A NATIVE HOSPITAL 270 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE THE SPHINX BY MOONLIGHT Frontispiece WATER MELON SELLER 8 AN ARAB WEDDING PROCESSION 16 A CHEAP RIDE 24 THE KHAN KHALIL, CAIRO 32 SUK ES-SELAH, CAIRO 48 ENTRANCE TO THE HAREEM 56 THE TAKHTABOSH 64 MOSQUE OF MOHAMMED BEY 72 A CAIRENE CAFÉ 80 THE TOMB OF SHEYKH ABD-EL-DEYM 88 ARAB SCHOOL 104 THE BLUE MOSQUE 112 PERSIAN ALMSHOUSES 128 THE STORE OF NASSÁN 136 RETURN OF THE HOLY CARPET 144 A FRUIT-STALL AT BULAK 152 A THEBAN HOMESTEAD 168 THE JACARANDA 176 THE BIRTH COLONNADE IN THE TEMPLE OF HATSHEPSU 184 THE HAIRDRESSER 192 A MARKET ON THE EDGE OF THE DESERT 208 THE TOMBS OF THE KHALIFS 216 THE MOSQUE AT KOSSEIR 232 DOORWAY IN THE TEMPLE OF ISIS 240 POTTERY BAZAAR IN A NILE VILLAGE 264 THE VILLAGE OF MARG 272 A CHAPTER I CAIRO REVISITED FTER a lapse of some years, I returned to Cairo to attempt once again to paint its ancient buildings, as well as the picturesque incidents seen in the shadows they cast or bathed in light against their sunlit walls. I made an early start on the first morning after my arrival, partly to look for a subject, and more particularly to see whether the pictorial side of the old quarters of the city would still impress me as it did on my first visit. It was a fateful morning, for had what I saw failed to stir up my former enthusiasm, I was resolved to pack up my traps, and try my hand in Upper Egypt. I hurried along the Mousky as fast as its usual crowd of people would allow, and turned down the Khordagiyeh to see if an old favourite subject of mine had not been ‘improved away.’ Needless to say, it was a brilliant morning, for the occasional grey days of midwinter were still a long way off. Great awnings hung across the street, and on one side the shopmen were lowering blinds or rigging up matting, in anticipation of the sun which would shortly be streaming down on them. Everything still had its summer look, though October was far spent;—and Cairo, let me say, is much more beautiful in hot weather than during the comparatively chill days of winter. The particular houses I had gone in search of were happily untouched; but had they been restored out of all shape or allowed to fall down for want of repair, I should hardly have had room for a depressing thought. From the crowd of country folk and the heavily laden camels and donkeys, it was evident that a market was being held in the open space in front of the Beit-el-Kadi. Locomotion was difficult till the Nahasseen or coppersmith street was reached, for here the road widens out at the Muristân. This handsome building, together with the mosques of Kalaûn, en-Nasir, and of Barkûk, formed a magnificent group, massed as they then were in a luminous shade. It was a meeting of old friends, and old friends looking their best. The dark awnings stretched across the road gave this pile of masonry a light and ethereal look, though they were dark in contrast to the azure above, save where the sun tipped the domes and a face of the minarets. The crowd allowed but little time for contemplation; I had to move with it, and reaching the short street which leads to the Beit-el-Kadi, a converging stream of people carried us along till we arrived at the market square. I picked my way through the heaps of fruit and vegetables which littered the ground, passed behind a group of camels, and worked my way to the steps of the court-house, which gives its name to the market. From this point of vantage I was enabled to make some rough studies of the animated scene before me. The sun had now risen high enough to flood the larger part of the square in light. Bits of matting, sailcloth, or anything which can cast a shadow, were rigged up to protect the more perishable goods, and the early comers had taken advantage of the shade of the acacia trees at the further end of the market. The general impression is one of light, colour, noise and movement. The detail is full of human as well as pictorial interest. Various combinations of colour—some beautiful, some inharmonious—leave ample scope to the painter to arrange his scheme. A pile of oranges and lemons, with the black and deep purple dress of the fellaha saleswoman, make a striking note in the foreground; the stacks of pitchers brought down from Balliana, in Upper Egypt, give a variety in buffs and greys, and the blue garments of the buyers are sufficiently faded not to contrast too violently. It is also a great study of types and characters. The noisy Cairene is chaffering with the quieter Shami from far Damascus for some pomegranates which are heaped before him; the Maghraby hawks a bundle of yellow slippers; Jew and Greek are trying to outdo each other in a deal over a spavined horse. Through the motley crowd passes the brightly garmented lemonade-seller, tinkling his brass cups; his rival, who retails licorice-water, seems more in demand; one, carrying a heavy pitcher with a long brass spout, invites the thirsty ones to partake of the charity offered them in the name of God. ‘Sebeel Alháh yá atchan,’ he drones out at stated periods. He is less often met at markets than at religious festivals, and he is paid by some visitor to the tomb of a saint to distribute the water as a thank-offering. A young camel about to be slaughtered is being led about and sold piecemeal, intending purchasers chalking on the hide of the beast the joint they wish to secure. The cheap-jack, with his usual flow of language, tempts the fellaheen to buy his European shoddy; Karakush, the Egyptian Polichinelli, is here, and also the quack doctor. 1 2 3 4 The effect is now rapidly changing as Bibar’s ancient palace ceases to cast its shadow over the further part of the market, and my vantage-ground becomes untenable as the sun creeps round to the steps of the court-house. I work my way to the archway at the eastern side of the square, and find another picture here well worth going to Cairo to paint, for from this point I get a view of the Muristân and the domes and minarets of its adjacent mosques, now in the full noonday sun. A stately background to the busy scene before me. The studies I had made of the market, though far from satisfying me, left me too tired to do more than make a few notes and a promise to come here again on a future occasion. It is a relief, after the glare and noise of a similar subject, to turn down the narrow dark lanes which are found in the residential parts of Old Cairo. The one entered from the archway winds through the Hasaneyn quarter and ends at the eastern entrance of the Khan Khalil. These lanes where the old houses are still intact are even more characteristic of Cairo than are the busy streets, for something similar to the latter can be seen in most eastern cities. The projecting latticed windows, which relieve the plane surfaces of the backs of the houses, are a distinct feature of this city. Known generally as mushrbiyeh, they were originally small bays in which the water-bottles were placed to cool. The word is derived from the root of the Arabic shirib, to drink, from which we also get our word sherbet. The bays were gradually enlarged so as to allow two or three people to sit in them and see up and down the street without being seen themselves. What corresponds to a glass pane in Europe is here replaced by a wooden grating. Each joint is turned, and so arranged as to make a pretty pattern. This grating is much closer in the apartments of the hareem, and though it freely admits the air and a sufficiency of light, it effectually screens the inmates from those outside. From the enlarged bays one or more smaller ones often project in which the earthen bottles are now placed. There are also small windows in the lower panels, through which I have often seen things hauled up in small baskets from the street. Sellers of fruit or sweetstuffs are often met in these lonely lanes, and a stranger might wonder where they expect to find custom. Presently a little grating will open and a face will nearly fill the opening. Should the stranger have been seen through the lattice-work, the face will be partly veiled unless it be that of a child, and after some bargaining with the hawker, a small basket containing a coin will be lowered. The coin having been carefully examined, the purchased article is placed in the basket and they are hauled up to the window. ‘Ma’s salama, ya sitt,’ ‘ya bint,’ or ‘ya Amma,’ according to the degree of the purchaser, is usually the farewell salutation of the hawker. But should the purchase not prove on further examination to be up to expectations, a lively altercation is sure to ensue, and voices from unseen parties behind the grating may also be heard. It is sad to see how much of this mushrbiyeh is disappearing; it is seldom now repaired and is often replaced by cheap sashes or is roughly boarded up. There are several causes for this: it is expensive, and the owners of the larger houses have mostly gone to live in the modern quarters and have let out their old homes in tenements to the poorer people. Much also has been destroyed by fire. The houses usually project over the lane as each story is reached, so that the upper windows often nearly meet the ones of the opposite houses. It is easily imagined how a fire will spread with so inflammable a material for it to feed on. The cheap imported petroleum lamps, which are replacing the earlier form of lighting, have much to account for. Many of the best examples of mushrbiyeh have been bought up by dealers to be made into screens or re-used in the modern suburbs. As seen from the lane, the houses have a gloomy appearance; but it should be remembered that the Cairene dwelling was not built to make an outward display,—its beauty is seen from its inner courts or garden. When he views them from the narrow sunless lane, the visitor wonders how people can live in such unhealthy surroundings. Should he be fortunate enough to have the entrée to a house which is still inhabited by a prosperous owner, he will probably come to the conclusion that no more suitable plan could have been adopted in a country where the summer lasts for three- quarters of the year. I shall attempt to describe a visit to a beautiful dwelling later on; at present let us wander through the Hasaneyn quarter, thankful that the rays of the sun are so carefully excluded. Reaching the wider thoroughfare, where stands the mosque which gives the district its name, the difference in the temperature is immediately felt. We carefully keep to the shady side of the road till we arrive at the entrance of the Khan Khalil. This Khan, more commonly called the Turkish Bazaar, is one of the few which every tourist is taken to see; it is in reality a series of bazaars, the most conspicuous being that of the metal workers. Passing through a massive doorway we enter a lane, roofed in overhead with long rafters and matting; the warm light, which filters through this, harmonises the various-coloured silks and stuffs which are piled up in every little shop or hung out to attract a customer. Each shop is little more than a square cupboard, but as carriages do not enter here the owners have been allowed to retain the mastaba, or raised seat, on a level with their floors and projecting two feet or more into the roadway. This was characteristic of every shop in Cairo, until carriages began to replace the litter and the ass as a means of locomotion. The merchant drops his slippers as he enters his place of business, while the customer can sit on the mastaba and keep 5 6 7 8 his slippered feet in the street. An old acquaintance recognises me and invites us to sit down; he claps his hands, and the boy from the coffee shop runs across to take his orders. When it is decided whether we shall have coffee or green tea, cigarettes are produced and a series of courteous inquiries then follow. I in return ask after his health and that of his children, but am not sufficiently intimate to allude to his wife. ‘Allah be praised, all are well.’ I ask how his business is, and he tells me that it is Allah’s will that things are not what they used to be. ‘Large rival stores now exist in the modern parts of Cairo and are injuring the trade of the Khan Khalil.’ He might have added that prices are more fixed in these new stores and that visitors have not the time to spend hours over a purchase. He asks me when I am coming to sit in his shop, again to paint that of Seleem, his opposite neighbour. He calls out to Seleem and asks him if he has forgotten the ghawaga who painted him and his wares. ‘Ya salaam!’ says Seleem, and crosses over to join in the conversation. When the greetings are over it is time to begin the leave-taking, and with a promise to come again and possibly bring a customer we continue our way. I am glad to find that both men still retain the kuftân and ample turban, and have not adopted trousers and the ugly red tarbouch, as most of the metal workers have done. Page 8 WATER MELON SELLER View larger image Descending some steps we come to the handsome gateway built by Garkas el-Khalíly in 1400; innumerable lamps, copied from those which used formerly to adorn the mosques, are exposed here for sale; brass finger-bowls, salvers and ewers cover the counters, and tall damascened lamp-stands fill up every available place on the floor. The original colouring of the gateway seems to have worn itself down to making a quiet and harmonious background to this sparkling mass of metal work. I am soon recognised by the owner of one of the stalls, from whose shop I had also painted a part of this bazaar, and am again invited to sit down to coffee and a cigarette. As some seven or eight seasons had passed since my last visit to Cairo, and considering the thousands of foreigners who must have passed through these bazaars during that time, it is astonishing that he should have remembered my face. There is, however, no time now to accept of the good man’s hospitality, but ‘In-sháalláh,’ I shall return before many days. Each turning gives us a fresh scheme of colour and the interest of another handicraft. The carpet bazaar leads out of that of the metal workers. The small cupboard-shaped shop is here replaced by one or two important show-rooms, and here and there a beautiful old Persian rug makes one regret the crude colouring of the aniline-dyed modern ones which are replacing them. Be the colours ever so glaring, the subdued warm light which passes through the awnings makes them part of one harmonious whole. A mass of red and yellow is what catches our eyes as we look down the slipper market, at a right angle from the carpet bazaar. Festoons of slippers hang from shop to shop, they are piled in stacks on the counters, and large skins, both red and yellow, are being cut up and hammered about as if the supply was not yet equal to the demand. We have them on our right, and pass through a double row of stalls where we are pestered to buy strings of beads, amber mouthpieces, cut and uncut stones, ‘Nice bangles for your lady,’ besides many other things we are equally not in want of. Here we take our leave of the Khan Khalil, and I also of the imaginary reader whom I have attempted to conduct through it. I am fortunate enough to find an arabeyeh, the Cairene cab, and can ponder over my morning while returning to the hotel. Yes, Cairo is good enough for a second visit, and, please God, a good many more. My second impressions were perhaps pleasanter than my first ones, for I had not now that bewildering sense of how I should set to work, and also if it were possible to give anything like a pictorial presentment of these scenes. The physical inconveniences of working in crowded streets and amongst a strange people appalled me; but I did not then realise, as I do now, how much a tactful guide can do to make this work a possibility. 9 10 N CHAPTER II RENEWAL OF MY ACQUAINTANCE WITH MOHAMMED BROWN AND SOME REFLECTIONS ON MATRIMONY OW the first thing to do was to look up my former servant, Mohammed el-Asmar, now a dragoman known as Mohammed Brown, the surname being the English interpretation of Asmar. I have described him fully in Below the Cataracts, a previous book I have written when Egypt was much newer to me than at present. I went to that haunt of the dragomans, the pavement outside the terrace of Shepheard’s hotel, late enough to have allowed for the post-prandial nap. I found one or two hanging about on the chance of some tourist who might be taking Cairo on his way home from yet hotter climates. They had not seen Mohammed lately and did not know to what part of Cairo he had moved; but one of them knew a relation of his and promised that he should be made to know that I was in Cairo. That same evening Mohammed was awaiting me in the hall of the hotel. After the first greetings I remarked on what a swell he had become, and asked him why he should have an English covert-coat over his becoming oriental dress, on so hot an evening as it was. Instead of the old red slippers, he wore European tanned-leather boots, and the turban was replaced by the hideous tarbouch. He had forgotten my dislike for this half-and-half get-up, and he told me it was now quite ‘the thing’ amongst the better-class dragomans. I was glad, however, to find that the seven seasons during which he had been preying on the tourists had not, apart from these changes in his garments, altered him much for the worse. ‘Well, how is the baby?’ I asked him. ‘Oh, he is getting a big boy now.’ ‘And the wife?’ I ventured this time. A rather crestfallen look prepared me that something was wrong. ‘Which wife, sir, do you mean?’ ‘You must be doing uncommonly well if you can afford two wives,’ I said; ‘most of us who have to earn our living in England find one as much as we can manage; besides, Mohammed, you used to agree with me that it was a very foolish thing for any one to have more than one.’ He certainly seemed to agree with me now, for it was evident that trouble began when number two made her appearance. ‘It came about like this,’ he went on. ‘You remember I told you that my first wife, the mother of our Hassan, was very pretty, and that I loved her very much.’ ‘Yes, I remember she was very pretty, for you know I caught sight of her that day my wife and I dined at your house.’ He smiled, but shook his head, as much as to say that he, a Moslem, ought not to have allowed his wife to be seen unveiled. As I, however, was not a Moslem myself, he tried to console himself that he had not transgressed Mohammedan law. ‘A pretty face, sir, she still has, but her tongue gets worse and worse.’ I asked the foolish young man if he expected to improve her tongue by introducing her to a second wife. ‘I have been a great fool,’ was his mournful reply; and after a pause, ‘I think I shall have to divorce her; but I love her very much in spite of her temper.’ ‘Well, now, about number two?’ I asked. ‘It came about like this,’ he began again. ‘You must remember Ahmed Abd-er-Rahman, the old dragoman that used to come here.’ ‘I don’t remember him, but no matter.’ ‘Well, I asked his advice about curing a wife’s temper, but got little encouragement from him. The few remedies he suggested, and which I tried, only made matters worse. ‘One day he said to me: “Mohammed, I have always loved you as if you were a son of mine, and as I have still an unmarried daughter, it would add to my happiness as well as to yours if you became my son-in-law. I shall only ask a small dowry of you, whereas if I were to marry her to the one-eyed Mustâpha, he could and would give a much larger one. She is young and beautiful, and has the sweetest disposition; and while I kept you waiting in the hôsh the other day, it was but to give her an opportunity of gazing on you through the mushrbiyeh. You can divorce your Rasheeda and live happily with my Fâtimah.” ‘This sounded very well, and I tried to get the old man to fix the sum I should have to pay as the dowry. He kept telling me of the price one-eyed Mustâpha was prepared to pay; but I wanted to know nothing about Mustâpha, and have since found out that this was all lies. After many days he agreed to content himself with ten pounds, and I paid him half that sum, the other half, as you know, to be paid when the marriage had taken place. ‘I had done well that season, and spent much of my earnings on the wedding; when I left my friends below to go 11 12 13 14 to the hareem, I gave my bride a handsome present as “the price of the uncovering of the face,” and when I threw back the shawl, and saw her for the first time, I nearly fainted.’ It was as much as I could do not to laugh, but the poor fellow seemed so overcome in recalling his bad bargain that I tried to look sympathetic. ‘I thought of divorcing her there and then,’ he went on, ‘but I had not the heart to pronounce those terrible words on the day of the poor creature’s wedding. She was ugly and old—at least thirty—and had as brown a face as I have.’ After a pause he went on. ‘Her father—may Allah blacken his face!—did not lie as regards her temper; but even the best of tempers could not withstand the jeering and scoffing to which Rasheeda used to treat her. My mother used to take her part, and we had more rows between Rasheeda and my mother. When I could stand it no longer, I went with two witnesses to the Kadi’s court and had her written a nashizeh, and she returned to her own people. Fâtimah tried to mother our little Hassan, but she could not console him. He got ill, and I was afraid we might lose him. I then took a room near Saida Zenab, and fetched Rasheeda away from her people, and she and the child are now living there. My life has been more peaceful since then, but the cost of two households makes me a very poor man. I assure you, Mr. Tyndale, that though I did very well last season, I hardly know where to turn for a piastre.’ It would be two months or more before the next season would be in full swing, so we arranged that he would accompany me during that time, and would procure me some one else while he was engaged with the tourists. He promised to be in good time the next morning, and took his departure. Probably nothing has tended more to separate the East from the West than their differing views as to the relation of the sexes. Such education as there is has until quite recently been entirely confined to the sons of the more well-to- do, and even at present the instances of a girl being taught to read or write are very rare. It therefore follows that as only one parent has had any mental training, the offspring has less mental capacity to inherit than where both parents will have had some form of schooling. The religious instruction which forms so large a part of a Moslem’s training is almost entirely withheld from the girls, which accounts no doubt for the erroneous idea held by Europeans that Mohammedans believe women to have no souls. Religious text-books give pages as to a child’s duty to its father, and they sum up in a couple of lines the duty to the mother. Educated Egyptians will often complain that their wives are no companions to them, but what can they expect when their womenkind are brought up in a manner so distinctly inferior? Polygamy is less common than is generally supposed, but a man can divorce his wife so easily that he has not the necessity of keeping more than one at a time. It is true that a father will hesitate to give his daughter to a man who has often used the divorce court, and that he will also advise his son to keep to one wife if he possibly can. A young doctor, who appeared to be happily married, told me of the advice his father gave him previous to the wedding. ‘Don’t be foolish enough, O my son, ever to take a second wife; for if you do, trouble is sure to begin. Should you tire of Zenab, get her another dress; women are all much the same, it is the clothes which make the difference.’ I asked if this plan had succeeded. ‘Yes, only too well,’ said my friend, ‘for she is continually encouraging me to get her a new dress.’ He also told me that previous to his wedding he had not even seen his wife veiled, though they were brought up in the same town. His sisters had described her so well to him that when he saw her for the first time, she was very much like what he had anticipated. Page 16 AN ARAB WEDDING PROCESSION View larger image I have described more fully elsewhere a marriage to which my wife and I were invited as guests, and as such full details of the ceremonial are given in Lane’s Modern Egyptians I shall not dwell on it here. Lane’s argument to those who severely condemn Islamic marriage laws is this: ‘As Moses allowed God’s chosen people, for the hardness of their hearts, to put away their wives, and forbade neither polygamy nor concubinage, he who believes that Moses was divinely inspired to enact the best laws for his people, must hold the permission of these practices to be less injurious to morality than their prohibition, among a people similar to the ancient Jews.’ This sounds fairly plausible, but we must not forget that Mohammedans accept Christ as a prophet as well as Moses, and also avow that each prophet taught them something higher than the preceding one had done, and there is certainly no licence as to polygamy or concubinage allowed in the teaching of our Lord. Their last prophet, and according to them their greatest, Mohammed, had overlooked this, and probably only codified what had more or less become a common practice in his day. As the modern Jews now hold to one wife just as do the people amongst whom they live, so it is possible that in time the Moslems may also modify their marriage customs. Supply and demand has already had its effect, for with the restrictions on slavery, concubinage has of necessity lessened and respect for the husband of one wife is increasing amongst the better educated classes. I started on a subject on the following morning, of an old house built alongside and overhanging an entrance to a 15 16 17 mosque. A little coffee-shop under an archway, on the opposite side of the street, made an excellent point of vantage from which I could do my work without attracting too much attention. Mohammed, who accompanied me, made arrangements with the owner of the stall for my accommodation, and sat on the high bench near me, so as to keep off the more inquisitive. An ideal post for him, for he could smoke a nárgeeleh, sip coffee, and chat with the other clients as much as he pleased. He would brush away the flies with one end of his whisp, and poke with the other end any small boy who ventured too near me. ‘If one comes it may not matter, but if one stays fifty others will come also,’ he would say, as the stick of the whisp and a boy’s head came in contact. It was also in the interest of the owner of the coffee-shop,—as Mohammed was careful to explain to him,—to make things comfortable for me, as I should spend many mornings here if I were not molested in my work. Besides my subject, which was a very beautiful one in itself, this was a useful perch from which to make studies of the people and animals which passed. It was in the Nahasseen, one of the busiest thoroughfares of Cairo, and scarcely an hour would go by without hearing the zaghareet, the shrill cries of joy which told of the approach of a bridal procession, or the doleful chorus, ‘Lá iláha illa-lláh,’ would prepare one for the passing of a funeral. It has happened that the zaghareet was not always the accompaniment of the more cheerful procession, for these shrill cries of joy replace those of lamentation when a welee, a person of great sanctity, is carried to his last resting- place. The idea conveyed is that the joys now awaiting him more than compensate those he has left behind for his loss. There is a curious superstition, or maybe some other cause which we cannot explain, that if these cries of joy cease for more than a minute the bearers of the corpse cannot proceed. It is also maintained that a welee is able to direct the steps of his bearers to a particular spot where he may wish to be buried. Lane tells the following anecdote, describing an ingenious mode of puzzling a dead saint of this kind. ‘Some men were lately bearing the corpse of a welee to a tomb prepared for it in the great cemetery on the north of the metropolis; but on arriving at the gate called Bab-en-Nasr, which leads to this cemetery, they found themselves unable to proceed further from the cause above-mentioned. “It seems,” said one of the bearers, “that the sheykh is determined not to be buried in the cemetery of Bab-en-Nasr; and what shall we do?” They were all much perplexed; but being as obstinate as the saint himself, they did not immediately yield to his caprice. Retreating a few paces, and then advancing with a quick step, they thought by such an impetus to force the corpse through the gateway; but their efforts were unsuccessful; and the same experiment they repeated in vain several times. They then placed the bier on the ground, to rest and consult; and one of them beckoning away his comrades to a distance, beyond the hearing of the dead saint, said to them, “Let us take up the bier again, and turn it round quickly several times till the sheykh becomes giddy; he then will not know in what direction we are going, and we may take him easily through the gate.” This they did; the saint was puzzled, as they expected, and quietly buried in the place he had striven to avoid.’ I witnessed a similar thing in Japan, a year or two ago; but in that case it was an idol which showed a similar obstinacy. It was at the ‘Gion Matsuri,’ which annually takes place at Kyôto, when the Shinto god Susa-no-o is carried to his O Tabisho—that is, his sojourn in the country with his goddess. No sooner had the god been placed on his portable throne than the wildest excitement was manifested by his bearers; some wished to carry him one way and some another, while others seemed rooted to the ground. A Japanese gentleman, who was with me, explained that until all the bearers felt drawn to pull one way, it was not known by which route the god had decided to go. It is singular that a similar superstition should obtain with people differing as much as the Egyptians do to the Japanese. The constant funerals which passed between me and my subject seemed little heeded by Mohammed and the other frequenters of the café, except when the chorus mentioned the name of the prophet, some would murmur, ‘God bless and save him’—‘Salla-lláhu-’aleyhi wasellem.’ The bridal procession, on the contrary, seemed to have a very depressing effect on my man, and he would hardly cheer up till a distant wail suggested another funeral. On one occasion I recognised the camels with the magnificent trappings used when the holy carpet is conveyed to Mecca; they were doing duty as a kind of vanguard to a bride who followed in a litter swung between two other camels. It was a most picturesque sight, and one to take as many notes of as possible for reference to in a future picture. Fortunately the progress of the procession is slow, the traffic of the street compelling it frequently to stop. This would enable me to get ahead of it and jot down some of the arrangements of colour. The heavy gold and crimson trappings of one camel, a combination of green and gold on a second, while the gold brocade of a third was in a purple setting; all this in a blaze of sunshine, yet subdued compared to the light caught by the brass kettle-drums. The background in some places, too cut up in violent patches of light and shade by the awnings over the shops or too intricate with the drawing of a saracenic mosque entrance, filled me with confusion as to how I could ever treat such a subject. When the broad plain surfaces of Barkûk’s and Kalaûn’s shrines made a setting to this gorgeous procession, I felt that my task had become more hopeful. 18 19 20 21 The number of facts I had to crowd into my memory in a half-hour or so, I found more exhausting than a long morning’s work on a subject such as the one I had left to pursue this one. To return to the little café where I had left Mohammed in charge of my painting materials, pack up my traps and go back to the hotel, was about as much as I was fit for during the rest of that morning.