Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-07-27
Geographic News
Bulletins by the
National Geographic Society
WHIRLPOOL OF CULTURES

NfIlitLtOOL Of
What Bagdad was in the days
Of Haroun-al-Raschid, Cairo is to-
day. Just as the mantle of Rome
passed west to London and New
York, so the mantle of the metro
polls of the Arabic speaking world
has passed west n la fallen on
the great city of the Nile, which
has taken on new interest with the
emergence of Egypt as a kingdom"
says a bulletin from the Washing
ton, ID. c., headquarters of the Ma
tional Geographic Society.
Cairo is a living kaleidoscope;
J its colored fragments are tumbled
into place not merely from East and
West, but from North and South as
well. White-robed Bedouin, ILL
clad fellah, shiny-black Soudanese
and central African negro. swarthy
Turk, Persian, Hindu, Monaghan,
dusky Moor. Italian, Greek. Arme-
MAN. and the whittier folk from
Europe. America and the antipodes
ali are jumbled together in Cairo,
babel that can hardly be duplicated
at any other spot on earth.
Down the Centuries by Trolley
THE life OF Cairo is almost what
you will. Do you want the finest of
European hotels with the last word
in luxury? They are there. Do
you long for the bazars of the true
East? o will find them just
around the corner. Would you see
the primitive life of the humble city
dweller, the inn of the desert van
medan youth, the crowds about the
mosques, the palaces Of Eastern
potentates-they are all within easy
reach. And If you would journey
swiftly n cheaply into the past
you need only board an electric
trolley-car n be whisked through
a few miles of sand to the Pyramids
of Gizeh and the Sphinx.
The life that GIBBS and flows
along some of the streets of Cairo
is like nothing so much as a circus
parade back home. Deliberate cam
els move along with brightly dress
ed riders perched upon them or
with suspended cars in which are
yelled damsels, while drummers
thunder their rhythm and fife blow
ers emit their shrill notes. Snake
charmers pass along with their bags
of snakes; magicians perform in
some nook; bullock-carts and laden
donkeys compete for space with
shining limousines.
Cafe Tables Halt Street Traffic
THE al fresco cafe is one of the |
most characteristics marks of
Cairo. 1t is not the more or less |
well ordered affair of the boule-
wards of Paris. Sidewalks and |
streets overflow with seemingly in
Vulnerable chairs and tables until
often a single file of pedestrians
can hardly force it's way through.
One gets the impression that few
need to work in Cairo. Even
In the mornings the chairs are fill
ed with apparently prosperous men
slipping coffee or sweetened water.
cigarettes, and talking. To-
ward noon they disappear for their
but again at four or five
o'clock they are out in force and
remain far into the night. Among
them c~irculates a stream of peddlers
offerings for sale almost every con-
ceivable ware from sweetmeats to
and underwear.
The dweller in Cairo who has
not his servant or his group of
servants is low indeed in the eco
nomic scale. These serving men
carry tiny bundles for their employ
ers-masters, n might say. They
run ahead of carriages to clear the
one after another they come in
troops into the presence Of the pros
porous to bring smoking materials
or to offer a bewildering succession
of drinks and foods. Life is hard
and a few cents a day satisfies them.
Even the porters who carry heavy
bundles and the boatmen who la
b%oriously pole the Nile craft against
the current work twelve or fifteen
hours for little more. than as many
cents.
The Oxford of Islam
Cairo is the Oxford of the
Mohammedan world, the University
of El-Azhar. 1t seems a queer
university to those familiar with
the higher institutions of learning
or e West. Its classrooms are
the halls and inches of a mosque.
Its professors receive no salaries
but are primarily religious officials,
government employees. lawyers and
the like who teach in addition to
their regular duties.
The pupils who at times number
more than 5000 squat on mats
while their instructors lecture. This
premier college of the Moslem
world has been in existence for $50
years and hundreds of thousands of
have passed through its
doors. 1t has been the center of
the Nationalist propaganda which
sought entire freedom of Egypt.
More. it is the hotbed of Pan-Islam-
ism, which, like it's companion
movement in the past-Pan-Ger-
manism-would combine it's own
culture with militarism to dominated
the world. But Pan-Islamism would
go further, and would bring the
world, el well, under the religion of
Mohammed."