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    Sketches and Travels in London

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    upon the fellahs who had maligned him; Skinflint Beg was promoted

      to the rank of Skinflint Bey; and his manner of extracting money

      from his people may be studied with admiration in a part of the

      United Kingdom. {3}

      At the time of the Syrian quarrel, and when, apprehending some

      general rupture with England, the Pasha wished to raise the spirit

      of the fellahs, and relever la morale nationale, he actually made

      one of the astonished Arabs a colonel. He degraded him three days

      after peace was concluded. The young Egyptian colonel, who told me

      this, laughed and enjoyed the joke with the utmost gusto. "Is it

      not a shame," he said, "to make me a colonel at three-and-twenty;

      I, who have no particular merit, and have never seen any service?"

      Death has since stopped the modest and good-natured young fellow's

      further promotion. The death of--Bey was announced in the French

      papers a few weeks back.

      My above kind-hearted and agreeable young informant used to

      discourse, in our evenings in the Lazaretto at Malta, very

      eloquently about the beauty of his wife, whom he had left behind

      him at Cairo--her brown hair, her brilliant complexion, and her

      blue eyes. It is this Circassian blood, I suppose, to which the

      Turkish aristocracy that governs Egypt must be indebted for the

      fairness of their skin. Ibrahim Pasha, riding by in his barouche,

      looked like a bluff jolly-faced English dragoon officer, with a

      grey moustache and red cheeks, such as you might see on a field-day

      at Maidstone. All the numerous officials riding through the town

      were quite as fair as Europeans. We made acquaintance with one

      dignitary, a very jovial and fat Pasha, the proprietor of the inn,

      I believe, who was continually lounging about the Ezbekieh garden,

      and who, but for a slight Jewish cast of countenance, might have

      passed any day for a Frenchman. The ladies whom we saw were

      equally fair; that is, the very slight particles of the persons of

      ladies which our lucky eyes were permitted to gaze on. These

      lovely creatures go through the town by parties of three or four,

      mounted on donkeys, and attended by slaves holding on at the

      crupper, to receive the lovely riders lest they should fall, and

      shouting out shrill cries of "Schmaalek," "Ameenek" (or however

      else these words may be pronounced), and flogging off the people

      right and left with the buffalo-thong. But the dear creatures are

      even more closely disguised than at Constantinople: their bodies

      are enveloped with a large black silk hood, like a cab-head; the

      fashion seemed to be to spread their arms out, and give this

      covering all the amplitude of which it was capable, as they leered

      and ogled you from under their black masks with their big rolling

      eyes.

      Everybody has big rolling eyes here (unless, to be sure, they lose

      one of ophthalmia). The Arab women are some of the noblest figures

      I have ever seen. The habit of carrying jars on the head always

      gives the figure grace and motion; and the dress the women wear

      certainly displays it to full advantage. I have brought a complete

      one home with me, at the service of any lady for a masqued ball.

      It consists of a coarse blue dress of calico, open in front, and

      fastened with a horn button. Three yards of blue stuff for a veil;

      on the top of the veil a jar to be balanced on the head; and a

      little black strip of silk to fall over the nose, and leave the

      beautiful eyes full liberty to roll and roam. But such a costume,

      not aided by any stays or any other article of dress whatever, can

      be worn only by a very good figure. I suspect it won't be borrowed

      for many balls next season.

      The men, a tall, handsome, noble race, are treated like dogs. I

      shall never forget riding through the crowded bazaars, my

      interpreter, or laquais-de-place, ahead of me to clear the way--

      when he took his whip, and struck it over the shoulders of a man

      who could not or would not make way!

      The man turned round--an old, venerable, handsome face, with

      awfully sad eyes, and a beard long and quite grey. He did not make

      the least complaint, but slunk out of the way, piteously shaking

      his shoulder. The sight of that indignity gave me a sickening

      feeling of disgust. I shouted out to the cursed lackey to hold his

      hand, and forbade him ever in my presence to strike old or young

      more; but everybody is doing it. The whip is in everybody's hands:

      the Pasha's running footman, as he goes bustling through the

      bazaar; the doctor's attendant, as he soberly threads the crowd on

      his mare; the negro slave, who is riding by himself, the most

      insolent of all, strikes and slashes about without mercy, and you

      never hear a single complaint.

      How to describe the beauty of the streets to you!--the fantastic

      splendour; the variety of the houses, and archways, and hanging

      roofs, and balconies, and porches; the delightful accidents of

      light and shade which chequer them: the noise, the bustle, the

      brilliancy of the crowd; the interminable vast bazaars with their

      barbaric splendour. There is a fortune to be made for painters in

      Cairo, and materials for a whole Academy of them. I never saw such

      a variety of architecture, of life, of picturesqueness, of

      brilliant colour, and light and shade. There is a picture in every

      street, and at every bazaar stall. Some of these our celebrated

      water-colour painter, Mr. Lewis, has produced with admirable truth

      and exceeding minuteness and beauty; but there is room for a

      hundred to follow him; and should any artist (by some rare

      occurrence) read this, who has leisure, and wants to break new

      ground, let him take heart, and try a winter in Cairo, where there

      is the finest climate and the best subjects for his pencil.

      A series of studies of negroes alone would form a picturebook,

      delightfully grotesque. Mounting my donkey to-day, I took a ride

      to the desolate noble old buildings outside the city, known as the

      Tombs of the Caliphs. Every one of these edifices, with their

      domes, and courts, and minarets, is strange and beautiful. In one

      of them there was an encampment of negro slaves newly arrived:

      some scores of them were huddled against the sunny wall; two or

      three of their masters lounged about the court, or lay smoking upon

      carpets. There was one of these fellows, a straight-nosed ebony-

      faced Abyssinian, with an expression of such sinister good-humour

      in his handsome face as would form a perfect type of villany. He

      sat leering at me, over his carpet, as I endeavoured to get a

      sketch of that incarnate rascality. "Give me some money," said the

      fellow. "I know what you are about. You will sell my picture for

      money when you get back to Europe; let me have some of it now!"

      But the very rude and humble designer was quite unable to depict

      such a consummation and perfection of roguery; so flung him a

      cigar, which he began to smoke, grinning at the giver. I requested

      the interpreter to inform him, by way of assurance of my

      disinterested
    ness, that his face was a great deal too ugly to be

      popular in Europe, and that was the particular reason why I had

      selected it.

      Then one of his companions got up and showed us his black cattle.

      The male slaves were chiefly lads, and the women young, well

      formed, and abominably hideous. The dealer pulled her blanket off

      one of them, and bade her stand up, which she did with a great deal

      of shuddering modesty. She was coal black, her lips were the size

      of sausages, her eyes large and good-humoured; the hair or wool on

      this young person's head was curled and greased into a thousand

      filthy little ringlets. She was evidently the beauty of the flock.

      They are not unhappy: they look to being bought, as many a

      spinster looks to an establishment in England; once in a family

      they are kindly treated and well clothed, and fatten, and are the

      merriest people of the whole community. These were of a much more

      savage sort than the slaves I had seen in the horrible market at

      Constantinople, where I recollect the following young creature--{2}

      (indeed it is a very fair likeness of her) whilst I was looking at

      her and forming pathetic conjectures regarding her fate--smiling

      very good-humouredly, and bidding the interpreter ask me to buy her

      for twenty pounds.

      From these Tombs of the Caliphs the Desert is before you. It comes

      up to the walls of the city, and stops at some gardens which spring

      up all of a sudden at its edge. You can see the first Station-

      house on the Suez Road; and so from distance-point to point, could

      ride thither alone without a guide.

      Asinus trotted gallantly into this desert for the space of a

      quarter of an hour. There we were (taking care to keep our back to

      the city walls), in the real actual desert: mounds upon mounds of

      sand, stretching away as far as the eye can see, until the dreary

      prospect fades away in the yellow horizon! I had formed a finer

      idea of it out of "Eothen." Perhaps in a simoom it may look more

      awful. The only adventure that befell in this romantic place was

      that Asinus's legs went deep into a hole: whereupon his rider went

      over his head, and bit the sand, and measured his length there; and

      upon this hint rose up, and rode home again. No doubt one should

      have gone out for a couple of days' march--as it was, the desert

      did not seem to me sublime, only UNCOMFORTABLE.

      Very soon after this perilous adventure the sun likewise dipped

      into the sand (but not to rise therefrom so quickly as I had done);

      and I saw this daily phenomenon of sunset with pleasure, for I was

      engaged at that hour to dine with our old friend J-, who has

      established himself here in the most complete Oriental fashion.

      You remember J-, and what a dandy he was, the faultlessness of his

      boots and cravats, the brilliancy of his waistcoats and kid-gloves;

      we have seen his splendour in Regent Street, in the Tuileries, or

      on the Toledo. My first object on arriving here was to find out

      his house, which he has taken far away from the haunts of European

      civilisation, in the Arab quarter. It is situated in a cool,

      shady, narrow alley; so narrow, that it was with great difficulty--

      His Highness Ibrahim Pasha happening to pass at the same moment--

      that my little procession of two donkeys, mounted by self and

      valet-de-place, with the two donkey-boys our attendants, could

      range ourselves along the wall, and leave room for the august

      cavalcade. His Highness having rushed on (with an affable and

      good-humoured salute to our imposing party), we made J.'s quarters;

      and, in the first place, entered a broad covered court or porch,

      where a swarthy tawny attendant, dressed in blue, with white

      turban, keeps a perpetual watch. Servants in the East lie about

      all the doors, it appears; and you clap your hands, as they do in

      the dear old "Arabian Nights," to summon them.

      This servant disappeared through a narrow wicket, which he closed

      after him; and went into the inner chambers, to ask if his lord

      would receive us. He came back presently, and rising up from my

      donkey, I confided him to his attendant (lads more sharp, arch, and

      wicked than these donkey-boys don't walk the pave of Paris or

      London), and passed the mysterious outer door.

      First we came into a broad open court, with a covered gallery

      running along one side of it. A camel was reclining on the grass

      there; near him was a gazelle, to glad J- with his dark blue eye;

      and a numerous brood of hens and chickens, who furnish his liberal

      table. On the opposite side of the covered gallery rose up the

      walls of his long, queer, many-windowed, many-galleried house.

      There were wooden lattices to those arched windows, through the

      diamonds of one of which I saw two of the most beautiful, enormous,

      ogling black eyes in the world, looking down upon the interesting

      stranger. Pigeons were flapping, and hopping, and fluttering, and

      cooing about. Happy pigeons, you are, no doubt, fed with crumbs

      from the henne-tipped fingers of Zuleika! All this court, cheerful

      in the sunshine, cheerful with the astonishing brilliancy of the

      eyes peering out from the lattice-bars, was as mouldy, ancient, and

      ruinous--as any gentleman's house in Ireland, let us say. The

      paint was peeling off the rickety old carved galleries; the

      arabesques over the windows were chipped and worn;--the ancientness

      of the place rendered it doubly picturesque. I have detained you a

      long time in the outer court. Why the deuce was Zuleika there,

      with the beautiful black eyes?

      Hence we passed into a large apartment, where there was a fountain;

      and another domestic made his appearance, taking me in charge, and

      relieving the tawny porter of the gate. This fellow was clad in

      blue too, with a red sash and a grey beard. He conducted me into a

      great hall, where there was a great, large Saracenic oriel window.

      He seated me on a divan; and stalking off, for a moment, returned

      with a long pipe and a brass chafing-dish: he blew the coal for

      the pipe, which he motioned me to smoke, and left me there with a

      respectful bow. This delay, this mystery of servants, that outer

      court with the camels, gazelles, and other beautiful-eyed things,

      affected me prodigiously all the time he was staying away; and

      while I was examining the strange apartment and its contents, my

      respect and awe for the owner increased vastly.

      As you will be glad to know how an Oriental nobleman (such as J--

      undoubtedly is) is lodged and garnished, let me describe the

      contents of this hall of audience. It is about forty feet long,

      and eighteen or twenty high. All the ceiling is carved, gilt,

      painted and embroidered with arabesques, and choice sentences of

      Eastern writing. Some Mameluke Aga, or Bey, whom Mehemet Ali

      invited to breakfast and massacred, was the proprietor of this

      mansion once: it has grown dingier, but, perhaps, handsomer, since

      his time. Opposite the divan is a great bay-window, with a divan

      likewise round the niche. It looks out upon a
    garden about the

      size of Fountain Court, Temple; surrounded by the tall houses of

      the quarter. The garden is full of green. A great palm-tree

      springs up in the midst, with plentiful shrubberies, and a talking

      fountain. The room beside the divan is furnished with one deal

      table, value five shillings; four wooden chairs, value six

      shillings; and a couple of mats and carpets. The table and chairs

      are luxuries imported from Europe. The regular Oriental dinner is

      put upon copper trays, which are laid upon low stools. Hence J-

      Effendi's house may be said to be much more sumptuously furnished

      than those of the Beys and Agas his neighbours.

      When these things had been examined at leisure, J- appeared. Could

      it be the exquisite of the "Europa" and the "Trois Freres"? A man-

      -in a long yellow gown, with a long beard somewhat tinged with

      grey, with his head shaved, and wearing on it, first, a white

      wadded cotton nightcap; second, a red tarboosh--made his appearance

      and welcomed me cordially. It was some time, as the Americans say,

      before I could "realise" the semillant J- of old times.

      He shuffled off his outer slippers before he curled up on the divan

      beside me. He clapped his hands, and languidly called "Mustapha."

      Mustapha came with more lights, pipes, and coffee; and then we fell

      to talking about London, and I gave him the last news of the

      comrades in that dear city. As we talked, his Oriental coolness

      and languor gave way to British cordiality; he was the most amusing

      companion of the club once more.

      He has adapted himself outwardly, however, to the Oriental life.

      When he goes abroad he rides a grey horse with red housings, and

      has two servants to walk beside him. He wears a very handsome

      grave costume of dark blue, consisting of an embroidered jacket and

      gaiters, and a pair of trousers, which would make a set of dresses

      for an English family. His beard curls nobly over his chest, his

      Damascus scimitar on his thigh. His red cap gives him a venerable

      and Bey-like appearance. There is no gewgaw or parade about him,

      as in some of your dandified young Agas. I should say that he is a

      Major-General of Engineers, or a grave officer of State. We and

      the Turkified European, who found us at dinner, sat smoking in

      solemn divan.

      His dinners were excellent; they were cooked by a regular Egyptian

      female cook. We had delicate cucumbers stuffed with forced-meats;

      yellow smoking pilaffs, the pride of the Oriental cuisine; kid and

      fowls a l'Aboukir and a la Pyramide: a number of little savoury

      plates of legumes of the vegetable-marrow sort: kibobs with an

      excellent sauce of plums and piquant herbs. We ended the repast

      with ruby pomegranates, pulled to pieces, deliciously cool and

      pleasant. For the meats, we certainly ate them with the Infidel

      knife and fork; but for the fruit, we put our hands into the dish

      and flicked them into our mouths in what cannot but be the true

      Oriental manner. I asked for lamb and pistachio-nuts, and cream-

      tarts au poivre; but J.'s cook did not furnish us with either of

      those historic dishes. And for drink, we had water freshened in

      the porous little pots of grey clay, at whose spout every traveller

      in the East has sucked delighted. Also, it must be confessed, we

      drank certain sherbets, prepared by the two great rivals, Hadji

      Hodson and Bass Bey--the bitterest and most delicious of draughts!

      O divine Hodson! a camel's load of thy beer came from Beyrout to

      Jerusalem while we were there. How shall I ever forget the joy

      inspired by one of those foaming cool flasks?

      We don't know the luxury of thirst in English climes. Sedentary

      men in cities at least have seldom ascertained it; but when they

      travel, our countrymen guard against it well. The road between

      Cairo and Suez is jonche with soda-water corks. Tom Thumb and his

      brothers might track their way across the desert by those

      landmarks.

      Cairo is magnificently picturesque: it is fine to have palm-trees

     
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