Connecticut western news., 1877-07-20
The Arabs and Copts of Cairo.

The Arabs and Copts of Cairo.
 2 Although Cairo is, strictly speaking in Africa, it is the most intensely antl typically Asiatic city ii the world. Except perhaps at Damascus, there is no other place in which the character istics of the Mohammedan Semitic races can be so easily studied. The people call themselves Egyptians, but ar re Arabs; they talk Arabic, and are of the religion of the Arabian Prophet. The Copts, whose name would make them the representatives of old Egyptians, are even now easily distinguished from the ordinary Arabs by their superior appearance. But they may represent rfro- o-seEoSning classes, those who com pelled the -constructton- of the great monuments, and whose features are found in the statues of the mighty monarchs of thirty or forty centuries ago. The lower ranks are Mahometans, and possibly many of them are Arabs, but they are down trodden race, the s servant of servants, the toilers, and cali- ! not differ very much from the people g of whom HerOdOtus says, truly or false s ly, that l00, 900 of them at time were 5 forced by Cheops to build his pyramid. But. Masr eff Kahira, ''the victorious 5 city,'' is altogether Arab The Roman s fortress, erected to overawe Memphis, and still known as Babylon, is tolerably perfect; much more perfect, indeed, than any remnant of Roman rule in En- gland but it lies some miles south of Cairo, and was not even included in the early Arab town, Fostat, now called Old Cairo.
 As Egypt was one of the first con- quests of Mahomet's disciples, one of the earliest seats of the great Caliphs, and long the centre of Arab civilization, it has more features of purely Arab type than Constantinople, or indeed, any other Oriental city of its size either Europe, Asia or Africa. The traveller, therefore, who desires to see the Ma hometan at home cannot to better than seek him in Cairo, and he finds in the narrow, picturesque streets of the old
 
 which we may seek in vain elsewhere. When he emerges into the modern quarters the change is remarkable. Though all the tyranny of the Turks has not suffice to alter the inClelible characteristics of the place, and though the wide squares, the fountains, the gardens, the arcades, the watered roads, a of will look, the people who crowd every thoroughfare are as unlike anything European as can be, Here, a long string ofgrOaning camels, led by Bedouin in white capote, carries loads of green clo- yer or long faggots of sugar-cane. There half dozen blue-gowned women squat idly in the middle of the roadway A brown-skinned boy walks about with no clothing on his long, lean limbs, or lady smothered in voluminous drapery rides by on donkey, her face covered with transparent white veil, and her knees nearly as high as her chin. A bullock-cart with small wheels, which creak horribly at every turn, goes past with it's cargo of treacle-jars. Hundreds of donkey-boys lie in wait for a fare, myriads of half-clothed children play lazily in the gutters, turbaned Arabs smoke long pipes and converse energetically at the corners, and every now and then pair of running footmen, in white shirts and wide short trousers, shout to clear the way for carriage in which, behind half-drawn blinds, some fine lady of the Vieeregal harem takes 2 the air.-She is accompanied perhaps by little boy in European dress, and by governess or nurse whose bonnet and French costume contrast strangely with the yelled figure opposite. A still greater contrast is offered by the appear ance of the women who stand by as the carriage passes, whose babies are car ried astride on the shoulder, or some times in the basket so carefully balanced on the head. The baskets hardly differ from those depicted on the walls of the ancient tombs, and probably the baby, entirely naked and its eyes full of black flies, is much like what it's ancestors were in the days of the Pharaohs. In the older quarters of the town the scenes are much the same only that there is not so much room for observing them; for the streets are seldom wider than Paternoster Row, and the traveller who stops to look about him is roughly jostled by Hindbad the porter, with his heavy bale of carpets, or the uncle of Aladdin, with his basket of copper i, lamps, or the water-carrier clanking :, his brazen cups, with an immense skin 4slung round his stopping shoulders.