The Wenatchee daily world. [volume] (Wenatchee, Wash.) 1905-1971, 1910-03-23
The Bdzanrs Of Old Bagdnd
FRED SBPICH AMERICAN CONSUL AT BAG-DAD

1 If Wenatchee woman could "avi-
ate" over Saddle mountain some fine
spring morning, and suddenly find
herself, shopping-bag in hand, stand
ing in the midst of the bazaars of
ancient Bagdad, o my, what joy!
Such has been my opportunity, and
so far as I know, with the exception
of an American missionary woman
who passed through here some years
ago, no other white girl from the
United States has ever lived in Bag
dad. True, didn't come all the way
by aeroplane, but I did find myself,
after two months travel, in Bagdad
and bargain hunting the first
week.
And Bagdads bazaars flourish to-
4 day just as they did when Marco Polo
did his holiday shopping here, 600
years ago. and sent gold-woven
shawls home to dark-eyed damsels in
the land of Spaghetti And this
same Mark P. was no mere tourist,
rushing through tho East for new
sensations and scenery; he was the
real original bargain hunter, and says
in his travels that he found the Bag
dad baZaars the Bargain Hunters
Paradise" During all my stay in the
mystic East, says the Wandering TIA
liam, found nothing to compare with
the charm, the interest, and the beau
ty of Bagdad's picturesque bazaars.
And so they seem today, to me.
I know the Tokyo bazaars, the IA
nous walled City, or native quar-
tiers of Shanghai; Pipe street" in
Picking has also pried money loose
from me. and Bombay's offerings
have taken toll. But to Bagdad's
bazaars | hand the palm-to enter is
to come out penniless There is so
much to buy, and each tempting bar
gain seems dirt cheap. Think of
hand-hammered finger bowls at 10
''piasters" I'll cents) each! And all
solid brass; Or long, full ostrich
plumes selling for $1.25-the kind
you pay Broadway milliners $40 for!
| OF course, these here are gray with
desert dust, and look droopy and
| whipped-out, just as they were when
| snatched from the tail of the fleet
footed fowl who was probably to get
away with only the loss of her tall
feathers. But cleansing and iyeing
primps them up as We see them when
sold for fifteen and twenty times the
local price. So it is with silks-they
sell here for one-third of home prices
And all these with never a "fire" or
clearance" sign to remind one of
special sales or any of the bargain
hunting scrambles we know at home
The Men Here Stare, Too.
In Arabia all "Hareem"
they call them-wear a veil-"Yash-
max" Modesty, as displayed in
keeping the face covered, is account
ed a prime virtue. A woman with
out Yashmak at large in the streets
of a mud-walled town in inner Ara
bia is as much a curiosity as bead
ed squaw or girl in mans clothes
would be on busy street of st.
Louis or New York They see few
women with uncovered faces, here
in Bagdad. Till lately the few Euro
pean women who live here, as wives
of Consuls, wool buyers, etc., always
wore face coverings, as the Moham-
medan women do. Too bad they left
| them off, I think. One cannot walk
through the bazaars now without at
tracing much unwelcome notice and
comment. Men, many Arabic women
and flocks Of children follow me
whenever I go through the shopping
STREETS, all castles and kinds of young
sters plucking at my sleeves or
skirts. The women, too, ask how
much my clothes cost, and where I
got them. The children beg, or say
"See the Kartum (woman) of the
Frenjis (foreigners), she wears no
yashmak!" The Arab men simply
stare-not insolently, as American
street loafers do-just with curiosity.
To them that any woman should
walk thus, without the eternal yash-
max, which all Mohammedan women
folk affect, is beyond explanation.
But Orientals think all westerners
mad. Why we, who seem to have
money to spend, should do such work
as golf, tennis, or long morning
walks, is to their primitive minds a
riddle. Once at Shanghai, a Chinese
Mandarain, who had stoot watching
the dancers at a ball at the American
Consulate, turned to his companion
and said: ''Such mad outer barbar-
ians: why do they not let the coolies
do this hard work." So are these
Arabs puzzled when be-spectacled
men from Boston or Philadelphia
come here, and dig holes like moles
into the mounds around Bagdad,
seeking the written stones and
broken pottery left here by the folks
| uho 1.-Two horo opd hohpohhoJ with