The Character Of The Houses By Which You Pass Is Scarcely Eastern
At All.
The streets are busy with a motley population of Jews and
Armenians, slave-driving-looking Europeans, large-breeched Greeks,
And well-shaven buxom merchants, looking as trim and fat as those
on the Bourse or on 'Change; only, among the natives, the stranger
can't fail to remark (as the Caliph did of the Calenders in the
"Arabian Nights") that so many of them HAVE ONLY ONE EYE. It is
the horrid ophthalmia which has played such frightful ravages with
them. You see children sitting in the doorways, their eyes
completely closed up with the green sickening sore, and the flies
feeding on them. Five or six minutes of the donkey-ride brings you
to the Frank quarter, and the handsome broad street (like a street
of Marseilles) where the principal hotels and merchants' houses are
to be found, and where the consuls have their houses, and hoist
their flags. The palace of the French Consul-General makes the
grandest show in the street, and presents a great contrast to the
humble abode of the English representative, who protects his
fellow-countrymen from a second floor.
But that Alexandrian two-pair-front of a Consulate was more welcome
and cheering than a palace to most of us. For there lay certain
letters, with post-marks of HOME upon them; and kindly tidings, the
first heard for two months:- though we had seen so many men and
cities since, that Cornhill seemed to be a year off, at least, with
certain persons dwelling (more or less) in that vicinity.
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