The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-09-08
All about the big city at the head of the Nile Delta
Ees.

, sacred city, and such gifts cost the Egyptian government alone a quarter of million dollars q year. Not only the khedive but the Mohammedan rulers of the Sudan. send gifts. and understand that the new railroad which
 has been recently completed from far
 up the Nile to the Red sea Is now giving special rates 10 pilgrimage parties. It is by no means safe 10 look
 upon Mohammedanism as a dead re- l ligion.
 Religion of the Lips.
 ] And still l sometimes wonder wheth er l this Mohammedanism is not religion
 of the lips rather than of the heart l These people are so accustomed to ut tering the words of prayer that they forget the sense. The use of the word God is heard everywhere in the bazaars. The water carrier. who goes about with pigskin upon his back, jingling his brass cups to announce his business. cries out: May God recompense men' and his customer replies as he drinks by giving him a copper in the name of the Lord. The lemonade peddler, who carries d glass bottle as big as four gallon crock, does the same, and venture the name of the Deity is ut tered here more frequently than in any
 other part of the world It is through this custom of religious pretext that l am able to get free of the beggars
 of the city l have learned two Arab words, Allah yatik." which mean:
 May God give thee enough and to spare.' When beggar posters me
 l say these words gently. He looks upon me in astonishment and then touches his forehead In polite Mo hammedan salute and goes away.
 City of the Egyptians.
 The tourist who passes through Cairo and stays at the big hotels is apt to think l that the city Is fast becoming a Christian :, one. He is told that the British are its 1 real governors, and as he drives over as- 1 phalt streets lined with the fine buildings 1 of the European quarter it seems alto
 gether English and French. If he is ac- 1 quainted with many foreigners he finds 1 them living in beautiful vias,.or it may ] be in apartment houses such as would
 not be out of place in any city of Europe 1 or of the nited States. He does his shop 1 ping in modern stores. and gradually l comes to the conclusion that the Arab l city Is fast passing away. This is not l SO Cairo is city of the Egyptians. Not l one-tenth of it's inhabitants are Christians i and it is the eight or nine hundred thou 1 sand natives who make mp the life blood
 of this municipality They people
 of a different world from ours l can see if we go down and stroll through ! the city They do business in different
 ways. and they trade much the same now l as they have been trading for generations l back. Their stores are crowded along 1 narrow streets which wind this way and ] that, so that one might lose himself in | tnem Every branch of business has it's 1 own section. In one place there are noth- | ing but saddlers, In another only shoe makers, and in another the workers in copper, silver and brass. The booksellers and bookbnders have a street of their own; and so have the clothers and tail ors Nearly every store Is factory as
 well, and most of the goods offered you are made in the shops.
 have been in most of the great oa-
 zars of the world, and l know of none l more interesting than those of Cairo. In them thousands are buying and selling, and each narrow street has stream of color which flows back and forth all day ] long. From the top of one's donkey this l stream is red and white upon bed of 1 black and blue The red is the feZ caps
 and thew hite the turbans. while the i blacks and blues are the gowns of the 1 people below them. The sides of the 1 streets are bright with the goods hanging | out of each little shop, and the whole Is like wandering through q worlds fair ia which the exhibitors are dark-faced. tur- baned, long-gowned men, who sit cross legged on carpets. with all the treasures
 of the orient piled about them.
 Cairo of Arabian Knights.
 Although the foreigner and his inno- vatons are almost everywhere In eVl- denee native Cairo is much the same
 now as 1t was in the days of the Arabian