XCAIROI need not have been afraid that the charms of Constantinople would spoil Cairo for me, although at first I was disappointed. Most places have to be lived up to, especially one like Cairo, whose attractions are vaunted by every tourist, every woman of fashion, every scholar, every idle club-man, everybody, either with brains or without. I wondered how itcouldbe all things to all men. I simply thought it was the fashion to rave about it, and I was sick of the very sound of its name before I came. It was too perfect. It aroused the spirit of antagonism in me.First of all, when you arrive in Cairo you find that it is very, very fashionable. You can get everything here, and yet it is practically the end of the world. Nearly everybody who comes here turns around and goes back. Few go on. Even when you go up the Nile you must come back to Cairo. There is really nowhere else to go.You drive through smart English streets, and when you find yourself at Shepheard’s you are at the most famous hotel in the world; yet, strange to say, in spite of its size, in spite of the thousands of learned, famous, titled, and distinguished people who have been here, in spite of its smartness and fashion, it is the most homelike hotel I ever was in. Everybody seems to know about you and to take an interest in what you are doing, and all the servants know your name and the number of your room, and when you go out into the great corridor, or when you sit on the terrace, there is not a trace of the supercilious scrutiny which takes a mental inventory of your clothes and your looks and your letter of credit, which so often spoils the sunset for you at similar hotels.Ghezireh Palace is even more fashionable than Shepheard’s. Here we have baronets and counts and a few earls. But there they have dukes and kings and emperors, yet there is a gold-and-alabaster mantelpiece which takes your mind even from royalty, it is so beautiful. Ghezireh is situated on the Nile, half an hour’s drive away, so that in spite of its royal atmosphere it never will take the place of Shepheard’s. Here you see all the interesting people you have heard of in your life. You trip over the easels of famous artists in an angle of the narrow street, and many famous authors, scientists, archaeologists, and scholars are here working or resting.Yesterday I was told that four Americans who stood talking together on the terrace represented two hundred millions of dollars. At dinner the red coats of the officers make brilliant spots of color among all the black of the other men, and at first sight it does seem too odd to see evening dress consist of black trousers and a bright-red coat which stops off short at the waist. But if you think that looks odd, what will you say to the officers of the Highland regiments?Theirfull dress is almost as immodest in a different way as that of some women, and one of the most exquisite paradoxes of British custom is that a Highland undress uniform consists of the addition of long-trousers—more clothes than they wear in dress uniform.Cairo is cosmopolitan. You may ride a smart cob, a camel, or a donkey, and nobody will even look twice at you. You will see harem carriages with closed blinds; coupés with the syces running before them (and there is nothing in Cairo more beautiful than some of these men and the way they run); you will see the Khedive driving with his body-guard of cavalry; you will see fat Egyptian nurses out in basket phaëton with little English children; you will see tiny boys, no bigger than our Billy, in a fever of delight over riding on a live donkey, and attended by a syce; you will see emancipated Egyptian women trying to imitate European dress and manners, and making a mess of it; you will see gamblers, adventurers, and savants all mixed together, with all the hues of the rainbow in their costumes; you will see water-carriers carrying drinking-water in nasty-looking dried skins, which still retain the outlines of the animals, only swollen out of shape, and unspeakably revolting; you will see native women carrying their babies astride their shoulders, with the little things resting their tiny brown hands on their mothers’ heads, and often laying their little black heads down, too, and going fast to sleep, while these women walk majestically through the streets with only their eyes showing; you will see all sorts of hideous cripples, and more blind and cross-eyed people than you ever saw in all your life before; you will see venders of fly-brushes, turquoises, amber, ostrich-feathers, bead necklaces from Nubia, scarabaei and antiquities which bear the hall-marks of the manufacturers as clearly as if stamped “Made in Germany”; you will see sore-eyed children sitting in groups in doorways, with numberless flies on each eye, making no effort to dislodge them; and you will visit mosques and bazaars which you feel sure call for insect-powder; you will see Arabian men knitting stockings in the street, and thinking it no shame; you will see countless eunuchs with their coal-black, beardless faces, their long, soft, nerveless hands, long legs, and the general make-up of a mushroom-boy who has outgrown his strength; you will hear the cawing of countless rooks and crows, and if you leave your window open these rascals will fly in and eat your fruit and sweets; you will see and hear the picturesque lemonade-vendor selling his vile-tasting acid from a long, beautiful brass vessel of irregular shape, and you never can get away from the horrible jangling noise he makes from two brass bowls to call attention to his wares; you will see tiny boys in tights doing acrobatic feats on the sidewalk, walking on their hands in front of you for a whole square as you take your afternoon stroll, and then pleading with you for backsheesh; you will see hideous monkeys of a sort you never saw before, trained to do the same thing, so that you cannot walk out in Cairo without being attended with some sort of a bodyguard, either monkey, acrobat, cripple, or the beggar-girls with their sweet, plaintive voices, their pretty smiles, and their eternal hunger, to coax the piasters from your open purse. But you accept these sights and sounds as a part of this wonderful old city, and each day the fascination will grow on you until you will be obliged to go to a series of afternoon teas in order to cool your enthusiasm.In passing, the flies of Egypt deserve a tribute to their peculiar qualities. A plague of American flies would be a luxury compared to the visit of one fly from Egypt. For untold centuries they have been in the habit of crawling over thick-skinned faces and bodies, and not being dislodged. They can stay all day if they like. Consequently, if they see an American eye, and they light on it, not content with that, they try to crawl in. You attempt to brush them off, but they only move around to the other side, until you nearly go mad with nervousness from their sticky feet. If they find out your ear they crawl in and walk around. You cannot discourage them. They craze you with their infuriating persistence. IfIhad been the Egyptians, the Israelites would have been escorted out of the country in state at the arrival of the first fly.England has done a marvellous good to Egypt by her training. She has taken a lot of worthless rascals and educated them to work at something, no matter if it does take five of them to call a cab. She has trained them to make good soldiers, well drilled because drilled by English officers, and making a creditable showing. She has made fairly dependable policemen of them, but their legs are the most wabbly and crooked of any that ever were seen. These policemen are armed. One carries a pistol and the other the cartridges. If they happened to be together they could be very dangerous to criminals. She has developed all the resources of the country, and made it fat and productive, but she never can give the common people brains.It poured rain this morning, and there is no drainage; consequently, rivers of water were rushing down the gutters, making crossings impassable and traffic impossible. They called out the fire-engines to pump the water up in the main thoroughfare, but on a side street I stopped the carriage for half an hour and watched four Arabs working at the problem. One walked in with a broom and swept the water down the gutter to another man who had a dust-pan. With this dustpan he scooped up as much as a pint of water at a time, and poured it into a tin pail, which gave occupation to the third Arab, who stood in a bent position and urged him on. The fourth Arab then took this pail of water, ran out, and emptied it into the middle of the street, and the water beat him running back to the gutter. I said to them, “Why don’t you use a sieve? It would take longer.” And they said, “No speak English.”I watched them until I grew tired, and then I went to the ostrich-farm as a sort of distraction, and I really think that an ostrich has more brains than an Arab.This farm is very large, and the ostrich-pens are built of mud. I never had seen ostriches before, and I had no idea how hideous, how big, and how enchanting they are. They have the most curious agate-colored eyes—colorless, cold, yet intelligent eyes. But they are the eyes of a bird without a conscience. They have no soul, as camels have. An ostrich looks as if he would really enjoy villainy, as if he could commit crime after crime from pure love of it, and never know remorse; yet there is a fascination about the old birds, and they have their good points. The father is domestic in spite of looking as if he belonged to all the clubs, and, much to my delight, I saw one sitting on the eggs while the mother walked out and took the air. Ostriches and Arabs do women’s work with an admirable disregard of Mrs. Grundy. Ostriches have an irresistible way of waving their lovely plumy wings, and one old fellow twenty-five years old actually imitates the dervishes. The keeper says to him, “Dance,” and although he is about ten feet tall, he sits down with his scaly legs spread out on each side of him, and, shutting his eyes, he throws his long, ugly red neck from side to side, making a curious grunting noise, and waving his wings in billowy line like a skirt-dancer. It was too wonderful to see him, and it was almost as revolting as a real dervish.We saw these dervishes once; nothing could persuade us to go twice—they were too nasty. The night the Khedive goes to the Citadel, to the mosque of Mohammed Ali, to pray for his heart’s desire (for on that night all prayers of the faithful are sure to be answered), the dervishes in great numbers are performing their rites. They are called the howling dervishes, but they do not howl; they only make a horrible grunting noise. They have long, dirty, greasy hair, and as they throw their bodies backward and forward this hair flies, and sometimes strikes the careless observer in the face. They work themselves up to a perfect passion of religious ecstasy to the monotonous sound of Arab music, and never have I heard or seen anything more revolting. The negroes in the South when they “get the power” are not nearly so repulsive.It is England’s wise policy in all her colonies to have her army take part in the national religious ceremonies, so when the Sacred Carpet started from the Citadel on its journey to Mecca there was a magnificent military display.It is an odd thing to call it a carpet, for it not only is not a carpet in itself, but it is not the shape of a carpet, it is not used for a carpet, and does not look like a carpet.We were among the fortunate ones who were invited to the private view of it the night before, when the faithful were dedicating it. They sat on the floor, these Mohammedans, rocking themselves back and forth, and chanting the Koran. I believe the reason nearly all Arabs have crooked legs is because they squat so much. One cannot have straight legs when one uses one’s legs to sit down on for hours at a time. They always sit in the sun, too, and that must bake them into their crookedness.The “carpet” is a black velvet embroidered solidly in silver and gold. It is shaped like an old-fashioned Methodist church, only there are minarets at the four corners. It looks like a pall. Every year they send a new one to Mecca, and then the old one is cut into tiny bits and distributed among the faithful, who wear it next their hearts.This carpet was about six feet long, and was railed in so that no one could touch it. A man stood by and sprayed attar of roses on you as you passed, but I do not know what he did it for, unless it was to turn sensitive women faint with the heaviness of the perfume.But the next morning the procession formed, and amid the wildest enthusiasm, the bowing and salaaming of the men, and the shouting and running of the children, and the singing of the Arabs who bore the carpet, it was placed upon the most magnificent camel I ever saw, which was covered from head to foot with cloth of gold, and whose very gait seemed more majestic because of his sacred burden, and thus, led by scores of enthusiastic Arabs, he moved slowly down the street, following the covering for the tomb, and in turn being followed by one scarcely less magnificent destined to cover the sacred carpet in its camel journey to Mecca. That was absolutely all there was to it, yet the Khedive was there with a fine military escort, and all Cairo turned out at the unearthly hour of eight o’clock in the morning to see it.As we drove back we saw the streets for blocks around a certain house hung with colored-glass lanterns, and thousands upon thousands of small Turkey-red banners with white Arabic letters on them strung on wires on each side of the street. These we knew were the decorations for the famous wedding which was to occur that night, and to which we had fortunately been bidden. It was in very smart society. The son of a pasha was to marry the daughter of a pasha, and the presents were said to be superb.We wore our best clothes. We had ordered our bouquets beforehand, for one always presents the bride with a bouquet, and they were really very beautiful. It was a warm night, with no wind, and the heavens were twinkling with millions of stars. Such big stars as they have in Egypt!When we arrived we were taken in charge by a eunuch so black that I had to feel my way up-stairs. There were, perhaps, fifty other eunuchs standing guard in the ante-chamber, and our dragoman took the men who brought us around to another door, where all the men had to wait while we women visited the bride.A motley throng of women were in the outer room—fat black women with waists two yards around, canary-colored women laced into low-cut European evening dresses, brown women in native dress; a babel of voices, chattering in curious French, Arabic, Turkish, and Greek. All the women were terribly out of shape from every point of view, and not a pretty one among them. One attendant snatched my bouquet without even a “Thank you” (I had been wondering to whom I should give it, but I need not have worried), and patted me on the back as she pushed me into the room where the bride sat on a throne amid piles upon piles of bouquets. She had a heavy, pale face covered with powder, eyes and eyebrows blackened, nails stained with henna, and a figure much too fat. She wore a garment made of something which looked like mosquito-netting heavily embroidered in gold, which hung like a rag. Her jewels were magnificent, but the effect of all this gorgeousness was rather spoiled to the artistic eye by her grotesque surroundings.After we had visited the bride we were approached by a little yellow woman in blue satin, who asked me in French if I would not like to see thechambre à coucher, and I said I would. We were then conducted to a room all hung in blue satin embroidered in red. Lambrequins, chair-covers, bed-covers, pillows, bed-hangings—all the careful work of the bride. Then we were invited to inspect the presents in another room, which were all in glass cabinets. Dozens of amber and jewelled cigarette-holders and ornaments of every description, most magnificent, but of no earthly use—as wedding presents sometimes are.Then we came down-stairs, and had all sorts of things at a banquet, and heard Arab music, and sat around in the room, where our men met us, and feeling rather bored, we decided to go home. There we were wise, for we met quite by accident the procession of the bridegroom. He was escorted through the streets by a band, and two rows of young men carrying candelabra under glass shades. We turned and drove along beside him and watched him, but he was so nervous we felt that it was rather a mean thing to do. He was a handsome fellow, but never have I seen a man who looked so unhappy and ill at ease. When he entered the house he proceeded to the door of the bride’s room, where he threw down silver and gold as backsheesh until her women were satisfied; then he was permitted to enter.As we drove away for the second time I remembered that they were having “torchlight tattoo” at the barracks, and we decided to stop for a moment.“It won’t seem bad to see some soldiers who can march, for the English soldiers are magnificently trained,” I said, as we stopped to buy our tickets. A young officer whom I had met heard my remark, and smiled and saluted.“The English soldiersarethe best in the world,aren’tthey?” he said, teasingly.“Undoubtedly,” I replied, tranquilly.He looked a little staggered. He had encountered my belligerent spirit before, and he did not expect me to agree with him.“You—you, an American, admitthat?” he said.“Surely,” I replied. “But why?” he persisted, most unwisely, for it gave me my chance.“Because the Americans are the only ones who ever whipped them! American soldiers can beat even the best!”It is now six weeks since I said that, but as yet he has made no reply.
I need not have been afraid that the charms of Constantinople would spoil Cairo for me, although at first I was disappointed. Most places have to be lived up to, especially one like Cairo, whose attractions are vaunted by every tourist, every woman of fashion, every scholar, every idle club-man, everybody, either with brains or without. I wondered how itcouldbe all things to all men. I simply thought it was the fashion to rave about it, and I was sick of the very sound of its name before I came. It was too perfect. It aroused the spirit of antagonism in me.
First of all, when you arrive in Cairo you find that it is very, very fashionable. You can get everything here, and yet it is practically the end of the world. Nearly everybody who comes here turns around and goes back. Few go on. Even when you go up the Nile you must come back to Cairo. There is really nowhere else to go.
You drive through smart English streets, and when you find yourself at Shepheard’s you are at the most famous hotel in the world; yet, strange to say, in spite of its size, in spite of the thousands of learned, famous, titled, and distinguished people who have been here, in spite of its smartness and fashion, it is the most homelike hotel I ever was in. Everybody seems to know about you and to take an interest in what you are doing, and all the servants know your name and the number of your room, and when you go out into the great corridor, or when you sit on the terrace, there is not a trace of the supercilious scrutiny which takes a mental inventory of your clothes and your looks and your letter of credit, which so often spoils the sunset for you at similar hotels.
Ghezireh Palace is even more fashionable than Shepheard’s. Here we have baronets and counts and a few earls. But there they have dukes and kings and emperors, yet there is a gold-and-alabaster mantelpiece which takes your mind even from royalty, it is so beautiful. Ghezireh is situated on the Nile, half an hour’s drive away, so that in spite of its royal atmosphere it never will take the place of Shepheard’s. Here you see all the interesting people you have heard of in your life. You trip over the easels of famous artists in an angle of the narrow street, and many famous authors, scientists, archaeologists, and scholars are here working or resting.
Yesterday I was told that four Americans who stood talking together on the terrace represented two hundred millions of dollars. At dinner the red coats of the officers make brilliant spots of color among all the black of the other men, and at first sight it does seem too odd to see evening dress consist of black trousers and a bright-red coat which stops off short at the waist. But if you think that looks odd, what will you say to the officers of the Highland regiments?Theirfull dress is almost as immodest in a different way as that of some women, and one of the most exquisite paradoxes of British custom is that a Highland undress uniform consists of the addition of long-trousers—more clothes than they wear in dress uniform.
Cairo is cosmopolitan. You may ride a smart cob, a camel, or a donkey, and nobody will even look twice at you. You will see harem carriages with closed blinds; coupés with the syces running before them (and there is nothing in Cairo more beautiful than some of these men and the way they run); you will see the Khedive driving with his body-guard of cavalry; you will see fat Egyptian nurses out in basket phaëton with little English children; you will see tiny boys, no bigger than our Billy, in a fever of delight over riding on a live donkey, and attended by a syce; you will see emancipated Egyptian women trying to imitate European dress and manners, and making a mess of it; you will see gamblers, adventurers, and savants all mixed together, with all the hues of the rainbow in their costumes; you will see water-carriers carrying drinking-water in nasty-looking dried skins, which still retain the outlines of the animals, only swollen out of shape, and unspeakably revolting; you will see native women carrying their babies astride their shoulders, with the little things resting their tiny brown hands on their mothers’ heads, and often laying their little black heads down, too, and going fast to sleep, while these women walk majestically through the streets with only their eyes showing; you will see all sorts of hideous cripples, and more blind and cross-eyed people than you ever saw in all your life before; you will see venders of fly-brushes, turquoises, amber, ostrich-feathers, bead necklaces from Nubia, scarabaei and antiquities which bear the hall-marks of the manufacturers as clearly as if stamped “Made in Germany”; you will see sore-eyed children sitting in groups in doorways, with numberless flies on each eye, making no effort to dislodge them; and you will visit mosques and bazaars which you feel sure call for insect-powder; you will see Arabian men knitting stockings in the street, and thinking it no shame; you will see countless eunuchs with their coal-black, beardless faces, their long, soft, nerveless hands, long legs, and the general make-up of a mushroom-boy who has outgrown his strength; you will hear the cawing of countless rooks and crows, and if you leave your window open these rascals will fly in and eat your fruit and sweets; you will see and hear the picturesque lemonade-vendor selling his vile-tasting acid from a long, beautiful brass vessel of irregular shape, and you never can get away from the horrible jangling noise he makes from two brass bowls to call attention to his wares; you will see tiny boys in tights doing acrobatic feats on the sidewalk, walking on their hands in front of you for a whole square as you take your afternoon stroll, and then pleading with you for backsheesh; you will see hideous monkeys of a sort you never saw before, trained to do the same thing, so that you cannot walk out in Cairo without being attended with some sort of a bodyguard, either monkey, acrobat, cripple, or the beggar-girls with their sweet, plaintive voices, their pretty smiles, and their eternal hunger, to coax the piasters from your open purse. But you accept these sights and sounds as a part of this wonderful old city, and each day the fascination will grow on you until you will be obliged to go to a series of afternoon teas in order to cool your enthusiasm.
In passing, the flies of Egypt deserve a tribute to their peculiar qualities. A plague of American flies would be a luxury compared to the visit of one fly from Egypt. For untold centuries they have been in the habit of crawling over thick-skinned faces and bodies, and not being dislodged. They can stay all day if they like. Consequently, if they see an American eye, and they light on it, not content with that, they try to crawl in. You attempt to brush them off, but they only move around to the other side, until you nearly go mad with nervousness from their sticky feet. If they find out your ear they crawl in and walk around. You cannot discourage them. They craze you with their infuriating persistence. IfIhad been the Egyptians, the Israelites would have been escorted out of the country in state at the arrival of the first fly.
England has done a marvellous good to Egypt by her training. She has taken a lot of worthless rascals and educated them to work at something, no matter if it does take five of them to call a cab. She has trained them to make good soldiers, well drilled because drilled by English officers, and making a creditable showing. She has made fairly dependable policemen of them, but their legs are the most wabbly and crooked of any that ever were seen. These policemen are armed. One carries a pistol and the other the cartridges. If they happened to be together they could be very dangerous to criminals. She has developed all the resources of the country, and made it fat and productive, but she never can give the common people brains.
It poured rain this morning, and there is no drainage; consequently, rivers of water were rushing down the gutters, making crossings impassable and traffic impossible. They called out the fire-engines to pump the water up in the main thoroughfare, but on a side street I stopped the carriage for half an hour and watched four Arabs working at the problem. One walked in with a broom and swept the water down the gutter to another man who had a dust-pan. With this dustpan he scooped up as much as a pint of water at a time, and poured it into a tin pail, which gave occupation to the third Arab, who stood in a bent position and urged him on. The fourth Arab then took this pail of water, ran out, and emptied it into the middle of the street, and the water beat him running back to the gutter. I said to them, “Why don’t you use a sieve? It would take longer.” And they said, “No speak English.”
I watched them until I grew tired, and then I went to the ostrich-farm as a sort of distraction, and I really think that an ostrich has more brains than an Arab.
This farm is very large, and the ostrich-pens are built of mud. I never had seen ostriches before, and I had no idea how hideous, how big, and how enchanting they are. They have the most curious agate-colored eyes—colorless, cold, yet intelligent eyes. But they are the eyes of a bird without a conscience. They have no soul, as camels have. An ostrich looks as if he would really enjoy villainy, as if he could commit crime after crime from pure love of it, and never know remorse; yet there is a fascination about the old birds, and they have their good points. The father is domestic in spite of looking as if he belonged to all the clubs, and, much to my delight, I saw one sitting on the eggs while the mother walked out and took the air. Ostriches and Arabs do women’s work with an admirable disregard of Mrs. Grundy. Ostriches have an irresistible way of waving their lovely plumy wings, and one old fellow twenty-five years old actually imitates the dervishes. The keeper says to him, “Dance,” and although he is about ten feet tall, he sits down with his scaly legs spread out on each side of him, and, shutting his eyes, he throws his long, ugly red neck from side to side, making a curious grunting noise, and waving his wings in billowy line like a skirt-dancer. It was too wonderful to see him, and it was almost as revolting as a real dervish.
We saw these dervishes once; nothing could persuade us to go twice—they were too nasty. The night the Khedive goes to the Citadel, to the mosque of Mohammed Ali, to pray for his heart’s desire (for on that night all prayers of the faithful are sure to be answered), the dervishes in great numbers are performing their rites. They are called the howling dervishes, but they do not howl; they only make a horrible grunting noise. They have long, dirty, greasy hair, and as they throw their bodies backward and forward this hair flies, and sometimes strikes the careless observer in the face. They work themselves up to a perfect passion of religious ecstasy to the monotonous sound of Arab music, and never have I heard or seen anything more revolting. The negroes in the South when they “get the power” are not nearly so repulsive.
It is England’s wise policy in all her colonies to have her army take part in the national religious ceremonies, so when the Sacred Carpet started from the Citadel on its journey to Mecca there was a magnificent military display.
It is an odd thing to call it a carpet, for it not only is not a carpet in itself, but it is not the shape of a carpet, it is not used for a carpet, and does not look like a carpet.
We were among the fortunate ones who were invited to the private view of it the night before, when the faithful were dedicating it. They sat on the floor, these Mohammedans, rocking themselves back and forth, and chanting the Koran. I believe the reason nearly all Arabs have crooked legs is because they squat so much. One cannot have straight legs when one uses one’s legs to sit down on for hours at a time. They always sit in the sun, too, and that must bake them into their crookedness.
The “carpet” is a black velvet embroidered solidly in silver and gold. It is shaped like an old-fashioned Methodist church, only there are minarets at the four corners. It looks like a pall. Every year they send a new one to Mecca, and then the old one is cut into tiny bits and distributed among the faithful, who wear it next their hearts.
This carpet was about six feet long, and was railed in so that no one could touch it. A man stood by and sprayed attar of roses on you as you passed, but I do not know what he did it for, unless it was to turn sensitive women faint with the heaviness of the perfume.
But the next morning the procession formed, and amid the wildest enthusiasm, the bowing and salaaming of the men, and the shouting and running of the children, and the singing of the Arabs who bore the carpet, it was placed upon the most magnificent camel I ever saw, which was covered from head to foot with cloth of gold, and whose very gait seemed more majestic because of his sacred burden, and thus, led by scores of enthusiastic Arabs, he moved slowly down the street, following the covering for the tomb, and in turn being followed by one scarcely less magnificent destined to cover the sacred carpet in its camel journey to Mecca. That was absolutely all there was to it, yet the Khedive was there with a fine military escort, and all Cairo turned out at the unearthly hour of eight o’clock in the morning to see it.
As we drove back we saw the streets for blocks around a certain house hung with colored-glass lanterns, and thousands upon thousands of small Turkey-red banners with white Arabic letters on them strung on wires on each side of the street. These we knew were the decorations for the famous wedding which was to occur that night, and to which we had fortunately been bidden. It was in very smart society. The son of a pasha was to marry the daughter of a pasha, and the presents were said to be superb.
We wore our best clothes. We had ordered our bouquets beforehand, for one always presents the bride with a bouquet, and they were really very beautiful. It was a warm night, with no wind, and the heavens were twinkling with millions of stars. Such big stars as they have in Egypt!
When we arrived we were taken in charge by a eunuch so black that I had to feel my way up-stairs. There were, perhaps, fifty other eunuchs standing guard in the ante-chamber, and our dragoman took the men who brought us around to another door, where all the men had to wait while we women visited the bride.
A motley throng of women were in the outer room—fat black women with waists two yards around, canary-colored women laced into low-cut European evening dresses, brown women in native dress; a babel of voices, chattering in curious French, Arabic, Turkish, and Greek. All the women were terribly out of shape from every point of view, and not a pretty one among them. One attendant snatched my bouquet without even a “Thank you” (I had been wondering to whom I should give it, but I need not have worried), and patted me on the back as she pushed me into the room where the bride sat on a throne amid piles upon piles of bouquets. She had a heavy, pale face covered with powder, eyes and eyebrows blackened, nails stained with henna, and a figure much too fat. She wore a garment made of something which looked like mosquito-netting heavily embroidered in gold, which hung like a rag. Her jewels were magnificent, but the effect of all this gorgeousness was rather spoiled to the artistic eye by her grotesque surroundings.
After we had visited the bride we were approached by a little yellow woman in blue satin, who asked me in French if I would not like to see thechambre à coucher, and I said I would. We were then conducted to a room all hung in blue satin embroidered in red. Lambrequins, chair-covers, bed-covers, pillows, bed-hangings—all the careful work of the bride. Then we were invited to inspect the presents in another room, which were all in glass cabinets. Dozens of amber and jewelled cigarette-holders and ornaments of every description, most magnificent, but of no earthly use—as wedding presents sometimes are.
Then we came down-stairs, and had all sorts of things at a banquet, and heard Arab music, and sat around in the room, where our men met us, and feeling rather bored, we decided to go home. There we were wise, for we met quite by accident the procession of the bridegroom. He was escorted through the streets by a band, and two rows of young men carrying candelabra under glass shades. We turned and drove along beside him and watched him, but he was so nervous we felt that it was rather a mean thing to do. He was a handsome fellow, but never have I seen a man who looked so unhappy and ill at ease. When he entered the house he proceeded to the door of the bride’s room, where he threw down silver and gold as backsheesh until her women were satisfied; then he was permitted to enter.
As we drove away for the second time I remembered that they were having “torchlight tattoo” at the barracks, and we decided to stop for a moment.
“It won’t seem bad to see some soldiers who can march, for the English soldiers are magnificently trained,” I said, as we stopped to buy our tickets. A young officer whom I had met heard my remark, and smiled and saluted.
“The English soldiersarethe best in the world,aren’tthey?” he said, teasingly.
“Undoubtedly,” I replied, tranquilly.
He looked a little staggered. He had encountered my belligerent spirit before, and he did not expect me to agree with him.
“You—you, an American, admitthat?” he said.
“Surely,” I replied. “But why?” he persisted, most unwisely, for it gave me my chance.
“Because the Americans are the only ones who ever whipped them! American soldiers can beat even the best!”
It is now six weeks since I said that, but as yet he has made no reply.