Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1891-11-26
IN AN EGYPTIAN APARTMENT HOUSE.
Interesting Scenes in Lodging Place in
the City of Cairo.

| Inc TWO rooms nearest us belonged 70
/ El Azhar students, so Mustapha said.
! He could speak no English, but he i'm
/ parted the information in Arabic to our
/ dragoman. Seeing that we were mora
interested in the general scene than in
his red jugs. Mustapha left the AssioUt
ware to its fate, and lighting a cigarette
seated himself on the railing with a dis
engaged air, as m-ch as TO say: Two
more mad women. But it's nothing to
me-"
! One of the students was evidently an
ascetic. His room contained files Of
books and pamphlets, and almost moth
ing else. His one rug was spread out
close to the front in order to get the
light, and placed upon it we saw his
open inkstand, his pens and page of
freshly copied manuscript. When we
asked where he was, Mustapha replied
that he had gone down to the fountain
to wash himself, so that he could say his
prayers
The second chamber belonged to q
student of another disposition; this ex-
travagant young man had three rugs;
clothes hung from pegs upon his walls,
and he possessed an extra pair of lemon
colored slippers; in addition we saw
cups and saucers upon shelf. Only
two books were visible, and these were
put away in a corner; instead of books
he had flowers; the whole place was
adorned with them; pots containing
plants in full bloom were standing on
the floor round the walls of his largely
exposed abode, and were also drawn up
in two rows in the passageway outside,
where he himself, sitting on a mat, was
sewing. His blossoms were so gay that
involuntarily we smiled. Whereupou
he smiled too, and gave US a salam.
Opposite the rooms of the students
there was q large chamber almost en-
tirely filed with white bales, like small
cotton bales; in niche between these
high piles an old man kneeling at the
threshold was washing something in Ii
large earthenware tub of pink tint.
His body was bare from the waist up
ward, and as he bent over his task his
short chest, with all the ribs clearly
visible. his long brown back with the
vertebrse of the spine standing out, and
his lean, seesawing arms looked skeleton
like, while his head, supported on
small wizened throat, was adorned with
such an enormous bobbing turban, dark
green in hue, that it resembled vegeta-
ton of some sort-a colossal cabbage.
Directly behind him, also on the thresh-
old, squatted large gray baboon whose
countenance expressed a fixed misan-
thropy.
Every now and then this creature
who was secured by a long loose cord.
ascended slowly to the top of the bales
and came down ON the other side, facing
his master. He then looked deeply into
the tub for several minutes, touched the
water carefully with his small black
hand, withdrew it and inspected the
palm, and then returned gravely, and
by the same roundabout way over the
bales, to resume his position at the door
sill, looking as if he could not under
stand the folly Of such unnecessary and
silly toll.
In another chambera large very black
ucSIO; uICooCu III pu1C WAlIc, was oCotLCu
upon the floor, with his feet stretched
out in front of him, his hands placed
stiffly on his knees, his eyes staring
straight before him. Hewas motionless;
he seemed hardly to breathe.
"What is he doing" l said to the
dragoman.
"He? Oh, he berry good man; he
pray"
In chamber next to the negro two
grave old Arabs were playing chess.
They were perched upon one of those
Cairo settees which look like square
chicken coops. One often sees these
seats in the streets, placed for messen-
gers and porters, and for some time |
took them for actual chicken coops, and
wondered why they were always empty.
Chickens might well have inhabited the
one used by the chess players, for the
central court upon which all these cham
bers opened was covered with layer Of
rubbish and dirt several inches thick,
which contained many of their feathers.
Constance Fenimore Woolson in Har
per's.