Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1910-06-21
Miseellaueoas gsadins.
BAGDAD BARGAINS.
Fascinating Bazaars Of a City Of the
East.

Fascinating Bazaars Of a City Of the
East.
II Market street cars gave transfers
to Bagdad, and an alert San Francisco
woman could step off, shopping bag
in hand. some fine morning and sud-
denly find herself in the midst Of
Bagdad's ancient bazaars-Oh, my.
what Joy! I had such luck; and,
excepting one or two wandering mis-
siolaries, am the only American
woman, believe, who has ever lived
in Bagdad. True, I didn't come all
the way on a street car transfer; but
did find myself, after two months
travel. in mysterious old Bagdad. and
ever since the bazaars have held me
in their thrall.
And these vast, mystic marts flour
ish today just as they did in the long
ago, when Marco Polo did his holiday
shopping here and sent gold woven
shawls home to dark-eyed damsels in
the land of spaghetti. And this same
Mark P. was no mere mad tourist.
rushing through the east for new sem
sations and scenery. He was the real,
original bargain hunter, and says in
his travels that he found the Bagdad
bazaars the bargain hunters para
disc"
And so they seem to me today. I
L. Tal tnbo rlxa 70 ha
famous walled city" of Shanghai;
Pipe street" in Pekin has pried
money loose from me, and Bombay's
offerings have taken toll. But to Bag
dads bazaars I hand the palm. To
enter is to come out penniless. There
is so much to buy, and each tempting
bargain seems dirt cheap. Think Of
hand-hammered finger bowls at ten
piastres (11 cents) each, and all solid
brass; or, long, full ostrich plumes
selling for $1.25-the kind you pay
Market street milliners $50 for. OF
course, these here are gray with de-
sert dust and look droopy and whip
ped out, just as they were when
snatched from the tail Of the fleet
footed fowl, which was probably glad
to get away with only the loss Of her
tail feathers. But cleaning and dye
ing primp them up as we see them
when sold for fifteen or twenty times
the local price. So 1t is with silks
they sell here for one-third Of home
prices. And all these with never a
IL ~ cd 90 Nd
one Of special sales or any Of the bar
home.
They're doing business in the same
old way in Bagdad, just as they did
in the days of the Arabian Nights,
when Haroun-al-Raschid and his
favorite wife, Zobeida, strolled out to-
gether for a merry evening In the
coffee houses. The shops hold just
as many wonders. No lady-killing
floor-walkers, no moving stairways or
"Pompeian rom" luxuries greet the
buyers Of wares in the Bagdad ba-
zaars; here are no super-civilized Sc
ductions Of the Yankee department
store type. But all around passes a
moving picture" show Of quaint and
curious interest. Alexander the
Great, Herodotus and all the early
kings of Babylon were familiar f1g-
ures in the bazaars Of these early
Mesopotamian towns. One can al
most imagine old Nebuchadnezzar
sauntering up to q corner cigar store
in Bagdad, carelessly playing the b.
c. slot machine and asking innocent
ly for election news from the Pharaoh
campaigns in Egypt King Solomon,
spent a lot Of money foolishly In Bag
dad buying knickknacks for the
capricious Queen Of Sheba.
The streets are barely ten feet wide,
mud cakes laid on mats and poles. TO
shut out the awful, soul-destroying
heat of summer-sometimes 125 or
130 Fahrenheit.
Along each side are the stalls, or
booths. At night they lock them up,
with door made Of nail-studded SLABS
fastened with ponderous locks and
keys a foot long.
In galleries leading off from the
main aisle work the artisans and
craftsmen. Here are over three hum
dred shoemakers, hammerfng away
on red and blue leathered boots. Be-
yond are the fancy belt makers, and
then a fez merchant (though most
fezzes are now made In Austria).
Then we reach the booth OF those VINO
yend spears, swords and other cut
lery of the battlefield. And every one
we meet wears the red shoes, the toes
turned up like the bow Of an Indian
canoe This next merchant sells
"Abbas''-the long flowing, graceful
cloaks which all Bagdad like to wear:
And here are camels' trappings, all
red and resplendent with bead ana
shell work.
In bargaining one Is struck with the
peculiar temperament Of the AraD
merchant. Argument seems dissi-
patton with him. A man selling an
old. moth-eaten and wind-broken
camel worth probably $4.S7, Will
spend as much energy, use up as
much talk and fling out as many
beautiful descriptive adjectives as the
auctioneer a little further along VINO
is asking bids for an Arab horse worth
81, 900. ,
And all around the strife for life
keeps up. A boy Of six selling sweets,
made from date juice ana plstache
nuts, and screams In shrill voice the
merits of his sticky, fly-catching mess.
A persian pilgrim, stranded far
from that dear Teheran, Is offering
for sale a beautiful antique rug, worth
800 on Fifth avenue; he asks thirty
medjidies-$26. I have relieved his
distress, and shall place the Persian
rug among my souvenirs Of this So
journ in Bagdad. With 1t / have
tear-bottle, which I myself picked up
among the sandy, wind blown ruins
of ancient Babylon. Mourners cried
in these bottles and buried them In
the grave with the body Of the depart
ed. And I nave a red seal, with a
lion-like creature engraved on 1t,
which was found at Niffer, where the
University Of Pennsylvania once had
an excavating party. / shall make
a ring of my find.
Silversmiths are clever here, as all
over the East These at Bagdad keep
shop in small, narrow recesses, so
built that in case Of riots or invasions
of the town they can quickly lock up
shop and leave their wares safe from
harm. They made me a dozen cof-
fee spoons. with coins for bowls, all
silver, for $2.40.-San Francisco
Chronicle.