The Noise, The Bustle, The
Brilliancy Of The Crowd; The Interminable Vast Bazaars With Their
Barbaric Splendour.
There is a fortune to be made for painters in
Cairo, and materials for a whole Academy of them.
I never saw such
a variety of architecture, of life, of picturesqueness, of
brilliant colour, and light and shade. There is a picture in every
street, and at every bazaar stall. Some of these our celebrated
water-colour painter, Mr. Lewis, has produced with admirable truth
and exceeding minuteness and beauty; but there is room for a
hundred to follow him; and should any artist (by some rare
occurrence) read this, who has leisure, and wants to break new
ground, let him take heart, and try a winter in Cairo, where there
is the finest climate and the best subjects for his pencil.
A series of studies of negroes alone would form a picturebook,
delightfully grotesque. Mounting my donkey to-day, I took a ride
to the desolate noble old buildings outside the city, known as the
Tombs of the Caliphs. Every one of these edifices, with their
domes, and courts, and minarets, is strange and beautiful. In one
of them there was an encampment of negro slaves newly arrived:
some scores of them were huddled against the sunny wall; two or
three of their masters lounged about the court, or lay smoking upon
carpets. There was one of these fellows, a straight-nosed ebony-
faced Abyssinian, with an expression of such sinister good-humour
in his handsome face as would form a perfect type of villany. He
sat leering at me, over his carpet, as I endeavoured to get a
sketch of that incarnate rascality. "Give me some money," said the
fellow. "I know what you are about. You will sell my picture for
money when you get back to Europe; let me have some of it now!"
But the very rude and humble designer was quite unable to depict
such a consummation and perfection of roguery; so flung him a
cigar, which he began to smoke, grinning at the giver. I requested
the interpreter to inform him, by way of assurance of my
disinterestedness, that his face was a great deal too ugly to be
popular in Europe, and that was the particular reason why I had
selected it.
Then one of his companions got up and showed us his black cattle.
The male slaves were chiefly lads, and the women young, well
formed, and abominably hideous. The dealer pulled her blanket off
one of them, and bade her stand up, which she did with a great deal
of shuddering modesty. She was coal black, her lips were the size
of sausages, her eyes large and good-humoured; the hair or wool on
this young person's head was curled and greased into a thousand
filthy little ringlets. She was evidently the beauty of the flock.
They are not unhappy: they look to being bought, as many a
spinster looks to an establishment in England; once in a family
they are kindly treated and well clothed, and fatten, and are the
merriest people of the whole community. These were of a much more
savage sort than the slaves I had seen in the horrible market at
Constantinople, where I recollect the following young creature - {2}
(indeed it is a very fair likeness of her) whilst I was looking at
her and forming pathetic conjectures regarding her fate - smiling
very good-humouredly, and bidding the interpreter ask me to buy her
for twenty pounds.
From these Tombs of the Caliphs the Desert is before you. It comes
up to the walls of the city, and stops at some gardens which spring
up all of a sudden at its edge. You can see the first Station-
house on the Suez Road; and so from distance-point to point, could
ride thither alone without a guide.
Asinus trotted gallantly into this desert for the space of a
quarter of an hour. There we were (taking care to keep our back to
the city walls), in the real actual desert: mounds upon mounds of
sand, stretching away as far as the eye can see, until the dreary
prospect fades away in the yellow horizon! I had formed a finer
idea of it out of "Eothen." Perhaps in a simoom it may look more
awful. The only adventure that befell in this romantic place was
that Asinus's legs went deep into a hole: whereupon his rider went
over his head, and bit the sand, and measured his length there; and
upon this hint rose up, and rode home again. No doubt one should
have gone out for a couple of days' march - as it was, the desert
did not seem to me sublime, only UNCOMFORTABLE.
Very soon after this perilous adventure the sun likewise dipped
into the sand (but not to rise therefrom so quickly as I had done);
and I saw this daily phenomenon of sunset with pleasure, for I was
engaged at that hour to dine with our old friend J-, who has
established himself here in the most complete Oriental fashion.
You remember J-, and what a dandy he was, the faultlessness of his
boots and cravats, the brilliancy of his waistcoats and kid-gloves;
we have seen his splendour in Regent Street, in the Tuileries, or
on the Toledo. My first object on arriving here was to find out
his house, which he has taken far away from the haunts of European
civilisation, in the Arab quarter. It is situated in a cool,
shady, narrow alley; so narrow, that it was with great difficulty -
His Highness Ibrahim Pasha happening to pass at the same moment -
that my little procession of two donkeys, mounted by self and
valet-de-place, with the two donkey-boys our attendants, could
range ourselves along the wall, and leave room for the august
cavalcade. His Highness having rushed on (with an affable and
good-humoured salute to our imposing party), we made J.'s quarters;
and, in the first place, entered a broad covered court or porch,
where a swarthy tawny attendant, dressed in blue, with white
turban, keeps a perpetual watch.
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