Mr. Robert Stephenson, C.E., Certainly Regretted Before His
Death The Opinion Which He Had Been Induced To Express By Desire.
[FN#40] There Are At Present About Eighteen Influential Shaykhs At
Cairo, Too Fanatic To Listen To Reason.
These it would be necessary to
banish.
Good information about what goes on in each Mosque, especially
on Fridays, when the priests preach to the people, and a guard of
honour placed at the gates of the Kazi, the three Muftis, and the
Shaykh of the Azhar, are simple precautions sufficient to keep the
Olema in order.
[FN#41] These Rakaiz Al-'Usab, as they are called, are the most
influential part of the immense mass of dark intrigue which Cairo, like
most Oriental cities, conceals beneath the light surface. They
generally appear in the ostensible state of barbers and dyers.
Secretly, they preside over their different factions, and form a kind
of small Vehm. The French used to pay these men, but Napoleon,
detecting them in stirring up the people, whilst appearing to maintain
public tranquillity, shot eighteen or twenty (about half their number),
and thereby improved the conduct of the rest. They are to be managed,
as Sir Charles Napier governed Sind,-by keeping a watchful eye upon
them, a free administration of military law, disarming the population,
and forbidding large bodies of men to assemble.
[p.115]CHAPTER VII.
PREPARATIONS TO QUIT CAIRO.
AT length the slow "month of blessings" passed away. We rejoiced like
Romans finishing their Quaresima, when a salvo of artillery from the
citadel announced the end of our Lenten woes. On the last day of
Ramazan all gave alms to the poor, at the rate of a piastre and a half
for each member of the household-slave, servant, and master. The next
day, first of the three composing the Bayram or Id[FN#1] (the Lesser
Festival), we arose before dawn, performed our ablutions, and repaired
to the Mosque, to recite the peculiar prayer of the season, and to hear
the sermon which bade us be "merry and wise." After which we ate and
drank heartily; then, with pipes and tobacco-pouches in hand, we
sauntered out to enjoy the contemplation of smiling faces and street
scenery.
The favourite resort on this occasion is the large cemetery beyond the
Bab al-Nasr[FN#2]-that stern, old, massive gateway which opens upon the
Suez road. There we found a scene of jollity. Tents and ambulant
coffee-houses were full of men equipped in their-anglice
[p.116]-"Sunday best," listening to singers and musicians, smoking,
chatting, and looking at jugglers, buffoons, snake-charmers,
Darwayshes, ape-leaders, and dancing boys habited in women's attire.
Eating-stalls and lollipop-shops, booths full of playthings, and sheds
for lemonade and syrups, lined the roads, and disputed with swings and
merry-go-rounds the regards of the little Moslems and Moslemahs. The
chief item of the crowd, fair Cairenes, carried in their hands huge
palm branches, intending to ornament therewith the tombs of parents and
friends.
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