"Of A Truth, The Physician Hath Power With Drugs,
Which, Long As The Patient Hath Life, May Relieve Him;
But The Tale Of Our Days Being Duly Told,
The Doctor Is Daft, And His Drugs Deceive Him."
After sitting there with dignity, like the rest of the guests, I took
my leave, delighted with the truly Persian
[P.88]"apparatus" of the scene. The Mirza, having no salary, lives by
fees extorted from his subjects, who pay rather than lack protection;
and his dragoman for a counter-fee will sell their interests
shamelessly. He is a hidalgo of blue blood in pride, pompousness and
poverty. There is not a sheet of writing-paper in the "Consulate"-when
they want one a farthing is sent to the grocer's-yet the Consul drives
out in an old carriage with four outriders, two tall-capped men
preceding and two following the crazy vehicle. And the Egyptians laugh
heartily at this display, being accustomed by Mohammed Ali to consider
all such parade obsolete.
About half-an-hour before midnight sounds the Abrar[FN#27] or call to
prayer, at which time the latest wanderers return home to prepare for
the Sahur, their dawn meal. You are careful on the way to address each
sentinel with a "Peace be upon thee!" especially if you have no
lantern, otherwise you may chance to sleep in the guard-house. And,
chemin faisant, you cannot but stop to gaze at streets as little like
what civilised Europe understands by that name as is an Egyptian temple
to the new Houses of Parliament.
There are certain scenes, cannily termed "Ken-speckle," which print
themselves upon Memory, and which endure as long as Memory lasts,-a
thunder-cloud bursting upon the Alps, a night of stormy darkness off
the Cape, an African tornado, and, perhaps, most awful of all, a
solitary journey over the sandy Desert.
Of this class is a stroll through the thoroughfares of old Cairo by
night. All is squalor in the brilliancy of noon-day. In darkness you
see nothing but a silhouette. When, however, the moon is high in the
heavens, and the summer stars rain light upon God's world, there is
something not of earth in the view. A glimpse at the
[p.89]strip of pale blue sky above scarcely reveals three ells of
breadth: in many places the interval is less: here the copings meet,
and there the outriggings of the houses seem to interlace. Now they are
parted by a pencil of snowy sheen, then by a flood of silvery
splendour; while under the projecting cornices and the huge hanging
balcony-windows of fantastic wood-work, supported by gigantic brackets
and corbels, and under deep verandahs, and gateways, vast enough for
Behemoth to pass through, and in blind wynds and long cul-de-sacs, lie
patches of thick darkness, made visible by the dimmest of oil lamps.
The arch is a favourite feature: in one place you see it a mere
skeleton-rib opening into some huge deserted hall; in another the ogre
is full of fretted stone and wood carved like lace-work.
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