The
Streets Of Cairo Are Not Paved In Any Way, But Strewed With A Dry
Sandy Soil, So Deadening To Sound, That The Footfall Of My Donkey
Could Scarcely Be Heard.
There is no trottoir, and as you ride
through the streets you mingle with the people on foot.
Those who
are in your way, upon being warned by the shouts of the donkey-boy,
move very slightly aside, so as to leave you a narrow lane, through
which you pass at a gallop. In this way you glide on delightfully
in the very midst of crowds, without being inconvenienced or
stopped for a moment. It seems to you that it is not the donkey
but the donkey-boy who wafts you on with his shouts through
pleasant groups, and air that feels thick with the fragrance of
burial spice. "Eh! Sheik, Eh! Bint, - reggalek, - "shumalek, &c.
&c. - O old man, O virgin, get out of the way on the right - O
virgin, O old man, get out of the way on the left - this Englishman
comes, he comes, he comes!" The narrow alley which these shouts
cleared for my passage made it possible, though difficult, to go on
for a long way without touching a single person, and my endeavours
to avoid such contact were a sort of game for me in my loneliness,
which was not without interest. If I got through a street without
being touched, I won; if I was touched, I lost - lost a deuce of
stake, according to the theory of the Europeans; but that I deemed
to be all nonsense - I only lost that game, and would certainly win
the next.
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