The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1880-06-24
The Orient.

The native bazaars of Cairo and AL
exandria reveal to the traveller, at a
glance, the character of the Orient; its
cheap tinsel, its squalor and occasional
richness and gorgeousness. The shope
on each side of the narrow street ars
little more than good sized wardrobes,
with rooms for shelves of goods in the
rear. and for the merchant to sit cross
legged in front. There is usually space for
a customer to sit with him and, indeed,
two or three can rest on the edge of the
platform. Upon cords stretched across
the front hang specimens of the wares
for sale. Wooden shutters close the
front at night. The little cubbies are
not places of sale only but of manufac-
ture of goods. Everything goes on in
the view of all the world. The tailor
is stitching, the goldsmith is blowing
the bellows of his tiny forge, the sad
dler is repairing the old donkey sad
dies, the shoemaker is cutting red
leather, the brazier is hammering, the
weaver sits at his little loom with the
treadle in the ground--every trade goes
on, adding its own clatter to the up
roar.
What impresses US most is the good
nature of the throng under trying cir
that three or four people abreast make
jam and it is packed with those NOV
ing in two opposing currents. Through
this mass comes donkey with q couple
of paniers of soil or of bricks, or bundles
of scraggy sticks; or camel surges in,
loaded with building jjoists or with lime,
or Turkish officer with a gayly-capari-
soned horse impatiently stamping; a
porter slams along with heavy box on
his back; the water carrier with his
nasty skin rubs through; the vender of
sweetness finds room for his broad tray !;
the orangeman pushes his cart into the
throng; the Jew auctioneer cries his
antique brasses and more antique raj
ment. Everybody is jostled and pushed
and jammed; but everybody is in an
in perturbable good humor, for no one
is really in hurry, and whatever is, is
S it always has been and will be. And
what a cosmopolitan place it is! We
meet Turks, Greeks, Copts, Egyptians,
Nubians, Syrians, Armenians, Italians; {;
tattered dervishes. welees," or Mos
lens, nearly naked, presenting the ap-
pearance of men who have been buried
a long time and recently dug up; Greek
priests, Persian parsees, Algerines, Hin
docs, negroes from Dafour, and blacks
from beyond Khartoum.
The traveller has come into country
of holiday which is perpetual. Under
this sun and in this air there is nothing
to do but to enjoy life and attend TO re-
ligion five times day. We look into
mosque; in the cool court is fountain
for washing; the mosque is sweet and
quiet, and upon its clean mating row
of Arabs were prostrating themselves
in prayer toward the niche that indi-
Gates the direction of Mecca. We stroll
along the open streets, encountering a
novelty at every step.
Here is musician, n Nubian, playing
upon sort of tambour on a frame; a
picking, feeble noise he produces, but
he is accompanied by the oldest char.
acter we have yet seen. This is stall
wart, wild. eyed son of the sand, coal
black, with great mass of uncombed,
disordered hair hanging about his
shoulders. His only clothing is u
breechcloth, and a round shaving-gla
bound upon his forehead; but he has
hung about his waist heavy strings OF
goats hoofs, and these he shakes in
time to the tambour, by a tremulous
motion Of his big body as he minces
about. He seems so vastly pleased with
himself that | covet knowledge of his
language in order to tell him that he
looks like an idiot Charles Warner.