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| Tunis Market, Cairo (via A Celebration of Women Writers) |
Through the winter of 1873-1874, Amelia Edwards and her companion, Lucy Renshawe, were prompted to take refuge in Egypt to escape the monotony of rainy weather! Beginning in Cairo, they travelled up the Nile to Abu Simbel, while Edwards catalogued their journey for her travelogue, A Thousand Miles up the Nile (1877).
In this extract from the first chapter of A Thousand Miles up the Nile, we see through Edwards' eyes the hustle and bustle of the place: her descriptions of European tourists of the time and the colourful, labyrinthine bazaars.
Reading time: 15 minutes
A Thousand Miles up the NileFrom Chapter 1: Cairo and The Great Pyramid
IT is the traveller's lot to dine at many table-d'hôtes in the course of many wanderings ; but it seldom befalls him to make one of a more miscellaneous gathering than that which overfills the great dining-room at Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo during the beginning and height of the regular Egyptian season. Here assemble daily some two to three hundred persons of all ranks, nationalities, and pursuits ; half of whom are Anglo-Indians homeward or outward bound, European residents, or visitors established in Cairo for the winter. The other half, it may be taken for granted, are going up the Nile. So composite and incongruous is this body of Nile-goers, young and old, well-dressed and ill-dressed, learned and unlearned, that the new-comer's first impulse is to inquire from what motives so many persons of dissimilar tastes and training can be led to embark upon an expedition which is, to say the least of it, very tedious, very costly, and of an altogether exceptional interest.His curiosity, however, is soon gratified. Before two days are over, he knows everybody's name and everybody's business ; distinguishes at first sight between a Cook's tourist and an independent traveller ; and has discovered that nine-tenths of those whom he is likely to meet up the river are English or American. The rest will be mostly German, with a sprinkling of Belgian and French. So far en bloc ; but the details are more heterogeneous still. Here are invalids in search of health ; artists in search of subjects ; sportsmen keen upon crocodiles ; statesman out for a holiday ; special correspondents alert for gossip ; collectors on the scent of papyri and mummies ; men of science with only scientific ends in view ; and the usual surplus of idlers who travel for the mere love of travel, or the satisfaction of a purposeless curiosity.
Now in a place like Shepheard's, where every fresh arrival has the honor of contributing, for at least a few minutes, to the general entertainment, the first appearance of L. and the Writer, tired, dusty, and considerably sunburnt, may well have given rise to some of the comments in usual circulation at those crowded tables. People asked each other, most likely, where these two wandering Englishwomen had come from ; why they had not dressed for dinner ; what brought them to Egypt ; and if they also were going up the Nile – to which questions it would have been easy to give satisfactory answers.
We came from Alexandria, having had a rough passage from Brindisi followed by forty-eight hours of quarantine. We had not dressed for dinner because, having driven on from the station in advance of dragoman and luggage, we were but just in time to take seats with the rest. We intended, of course, to go up the Nile ; and had any one ventured to inquire in so many words what brought us to Egypt, we should have replied: – "Stress of weather."
For in simple truth we had drifted hither by accident, with no excuse of health, or business, or any serious object whatever ; and had just taken refuge in Egypt as one might turn aside into the Burlington Arcade or the Passage des Panoramas – to get out of the rain.
And with good reason. Having left home early in September for a few weeks' sketching in central France, we had been pursued by the wettest of wet weather. Washed out of the hill-country, we fared no better in the plains. At Nismes, it poured for a month without stopping. Debating at last whether it were better to take our wet umbrellas back at once to England, or push on farther still in search of sunshine, the talk fell upon Algiers – Malta – Cairo ; and Cairo carried it. Never was distant expedition entered upon with less premeditation. The thing was no sooner decided than we were gone. Nice, Genoa, Bologna, Ancona flitted by, as in a dream ; and Bedreddin Hassan when he awoke at the gates of Damascus was scarcely more surprised than the writer of these pages, when she found herself on board the Simla, and steaming out of the port of Brindisi.
Here, then, without definite plans, outfit, or any kind of Oriental experience, behold us arrived in Cairo on the 29th of November 1873, literally, and most prosaically, in search of fine weather.
But what had memory to do with rains on land, or storms at sea, or the impatient hours of quarantine, or anything dismal or disagreeable, when one awoke at sunrise to see those grey-green palms outside the window solemnly bowing their plumed heads towards each other, against a rose-coloured dawn? It was dark last night, and I had no idea that my room overlooked an enchanted garden, far-reaching and solitary, peopled with stately giants beneath whose tufted crowns hung rich clusters of maroon and amber dates. It was a still, warm morning. Grave grey and black crows flew heavily from tree to tree, or perched, cawing meditatively, upon the topmost branches. Yonder, between the pillared stems, rose the minaret of a very distant mosque ; and here where the garden was bounded by a high wall and a windowless house, I saw a veiled lady walking on the terraced roof in the midst of a cloud of pigeons. Nothing could be more simple than the scene and its accessories ; nothing, at the same time, more Eastern, strange, and unreal.
But in order thoroughly to enjoy an overwhelming, ineffaceable first impression of Oriental out-of-doors life, one should begin in Cairo with a day in the native bazaars; neither buying, nor sketching, nor seeking information, but just taking in scene after scene, with its manifold combinations of light and shade, colour, costume, and architectural detail. Every shop-front, every street corner, every turbaned group is a ready-made picture. The old Turk who sets up his cake-stall in the recess of a sculptured doorway ; the donkey-boy with his gaily caparisoned ass, waiting for customers ; the beggar asleep on the steps of the mosque ; the veiled woman filling her water jar at the public fountain – they all look as if they had been put there expressly to be painted.
Nor is the background less picturesque than the figures. The houses are high and narrow. The upper stories project ; and from these again jut windows of delicate turned latticework in old brown wood, like big bird-cages. The street is roofed in overhead with long rafters and pieces of matting, through which a dusty sunbeam struggles here and there, casting patches of light upon the moving crowd. The unpaved thoroughfare – a mere narrow lane, full of ruts and watered profusely twice or thrice a day – is lined with little wooden shop-fronts, like open cabinets full of shelves, where the merchants sit cross-legged in the midst of their goods, looking out at the passers-by and smoking in silence. Meanwhile, the crowd ebbs and flows unceasingly – a noisy, changing, restless, parti-coloured tide, half European, half Oriental, on foot, on horseback, and in carriages. Here are Syrian dragomans in baggy trousers and braided jackets ; barefooted Egyptian fellaheen in ragged blue shirts and felt skull-caps ; Greeks in absurdly stiff white tunics, like walking penwipers ; Persians with high mitre-like caps of dark woven stuff ; swarthy Bedouins in flowing garments, creamy-white with chocolate stripes a foot wide, and head-shawl of the same bound about the brow with a fillet of twisted camel's hair ; Englishmen in palm-leaf hats and knickerbockers, dangling their long legs across almost invisible donkeys ; native women of the poorer class, in black veils that leave only the eyes uncovered, and long trailing garments of dark blue and black striped cotton ; dervishes in patchwork coats, their matted hair streaming from under fantastic head-dresses ; blue-black Abyssinians with incredibly slender, bowed legs, like attenuated ebony balustrades ; Armenian priests, looking exactly like Portia as the Doctor, in long black gowns and high square caps ; majestic ghosts of Algerine Arabs, all in white ; mounted Janissaries with jingling sabres and gold-embroidered jackets ; merchants, beggars, soldiers, boatmen, labourers, workmen, in every variety of costume, and of every shade of complexion from fair to dark, from tawny to copper-colour, from deepest bronze to bluest black.
Now a water-carrier goes by, bending under the weight of his newly replenished goatskin, the legs of which being tied up, the neck fitted with a brass cock, and the hair left on, looks horribly bloated and life-like. Now comes a sweetmeat-vendor with a tray of that gummy compound known to English children as "Lumps of Delight"; and now an Egyptian lady on a large grey donkey led by a servant with a showy sabre at his side. The lady wears a rose-coloured silk dress and white veil, besides a black silk outer garment, which, being cloak, hood, and veil all in one, fills out with the wind as she rides, like a balloon. She sits astride ; her naked feet, in their violet velvet slippers, just resting on the stirrups. She takes care to display a plump brown arm laden with massive gold bracelets, and, to judge by the way in which she uses a pair of liquid black eyes, would not be sorry to let her face be seen also. Nor is the steed less well dressed than his mistress. His close-shaven legs and hindquarters are painted in blue and white zigzags picked out with bands of pale yellow ; his high-pommelled saddle is resplendent with velvet and embroidery ; and his headgear is all tags, tassels, and fringes. Such a donkey as this is worth from sixty to a hundred pounds sterling. Next passes an open barouche full of laughing Englishwomen ; or a grave provincial sheykh all in black, riding a handsome bay Arab, demi-sang ; or an Egyptian gentleman in European dress and Turkish fez, driven by an English groom in an English phaeton. Before him, wand in hand, bare-legged, eager-eyed, in Greek skull-cap and gorgeous gold-embroidered waistcoat and fluttering white tunic, flies a native Saïs, or running footman. No person of position drives in Cairo without one or two of these attendants. The Saïs (strong, light, and beautiful, like John of Bologna's Mercury) are said to die young. The pace kills them. Next passes a lemonade-seller, with his tin jar in one hand, and his decanter and brass cups in the other ; or an itinerant slipper-vendor with a bunch of red and yellow morocco shoes dangling at the end of a long pole ; or a London-built miniature brougham containing two ladies in transparent Turkish veils, preceded by a Nubian outrider in semi-military livery ; or, perhaps, a train of camels, ill-tempered and supercilious, craning their scrannel necks above the crowd, and laden with canvas bales scrawled over with Arabic addresses.
But the Egyptian, Arab, and Turkish merchants, whether mingling in the general tide or sitting on their counters, are the most picturesque personages in all this busy scene. They wear ample turbans, for the most part white ; long vests of striped Syrian silk reaching to the feet ; and an outer robe of braided cloth or cashmere. The vest is confined round the waist by a rich sash ; and the outer robe, or gibbeh, is generally of some beautiful degraded color, such as maize, mulberry, olive, peach, sea-green, salmon-pink, sienna-brown, and the like. That these stately beings should vulgarly buy and sell, instead of reposing all their lives on luxurious divans and being waited upon by beautiful Circassians, seems altogether contrary to the eternal fitness of things. Here, for instance, is a Grand Vizier in a gorgeous white and amber satin vest, who condescends to retail pipe-bowls, – dull red clay pipe-bowls of all sizes and prices. He sells nothing else, and has not only a pile of them on the counter, but a binful at the back of his shop. They are made at Siout in Upper Egypt, and may be bought at the Algerine shops in London almost as cheaply as in Cairo. Another majestic Pasha deals in brass and copper vessels, drinking-cups, basins, ewers, trays, incense-burners, chafing-dishes, and the like ; some of which are exquisitely engraved with Arabesque patterns or sentences from the poets. A third sells silk from the looms of Lebanon, and gold and silver tissues from Damascus. Others, again, sell old arms, old porcelain, old embroideries, second-hand prayer-carpets, and quaint little stools and cabinets of ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Here, too, the tobacco-merchant sits behind a huge cake of Latakia as big as his own body ; and the sponge-merchant smokes his long chibouk in a bower of sponges.
Most amusing of all, however, are those bazaars in which each trade occupies its separate quarter. You pass through an old stone gateway or down a narrow turning, and find yourself amid a colony of saddlers stitching, hammering, punching, riveting. You walk up one alley and down another, between shop-fronts hung round with tasselled head-gear and hump-backed saddles of all qualities and colours. Here are ladies' saddles, military saddles, donkey-saddles, and saddles for great officers of state ; saddles covered with red leather, with crimson and violet velvet, with maroon, and grey, and purple cloth ; saddles embroidered with gold and silver, studded with brass-headed nails, or trimmed with braid.
Another turn or two, and you are in the slipper bazaar, walking down avenues of red and yellow morocco slippers ; the former of home manufacture, the latter from Tunis. Here are slippers with pointed toes, turned-up toes, and toes as round and flat as horse-shoes ; walking slippers with thick soles, and soft yellow slippers to be worn as inside socks, which have no soles at all. These absurd little scarlet bluchers with tassels are for little boys ; the brown morocco shoes are for grooms ; the velvet slippers embroidered with gold and beads and seed-pearls are for wealthy hareems, and are sold at prices varying from five shillings to five pounds the pair.
The carpet bazaar is of considerable extent, and consists of a network of alleys and counter-alleys opening off to the right of the Muski, which is the Regent Street of Cairo. The houses in most of these alleys are rich in antique lattice-windows and Saracenic doorways. One little square is tapestried all round with Persian and Syrian rugs, Damascus saddle-bags, and Turkish prayer-carpets. The merchants sit and smoke in the midst of their goods ; and up in one corner an old "Kahwagee," or coffee-seller, plies his humble trade. He has set up his little stove and hanging-shelf beside the doorway of a dilapidated Khan, the walls of which are faced with Arabesque panellings in old carved stone. It is one of the most picturesque "bits" in Cairo. The striped carpets of Tunis ; the dim grey and blue, or grey and red fabrics of Algiers ; the shaggy rugs of Laodicea and Smyrna ; the rich blues and greens and subdued reds of Turkey ; and the wonderfully varied, harmonious patterns of Persia, have each their local habitation in the neighbouring alleys. One is never tired of traversing these half-lighted avenues all aglow with gorgeous color and peopled with figures that come and go like the actors in some Christmas piece of Oriental pageantry.
In the Khan Khaleel, the place of the gold and silver smiths' bazaar, there is found, on the contrary, scarcely any display of goods for sale. The alleys are so narrow in this part that two persons can with difficulty walk in them abreast ; and the shops, tinier than ever, are mere cupboards with about three feet of frontage. The back of each cupboard is fitted with tiers of little drawers and pigeon-holes, and in front is a kind of matted stone step, called a mastabah, which serves for seat and counter. The customer sits on the edge of the mastabah ; the merchant squats, cross-legged, inside. In this position he can, without rising, take out drawer after drawer ; and thus the space between the two becomes piled with gold and silver ornaments. These differ from each other only in the metal, the patterns being identical ; and they are sold by weight, with a due margin for profit. In dealing with strangers who do not understand the Egyptian system of weights, silver articles are commonly weighed against rupees or five-franc pieces, and gold articles against napoleons or sovereigns. The ornaments made in Cairo consist chiefly of chains and earrings, anklets, bangles, necklaces strung with coins or tusk-shaped pendants, amulet-cases of filigree or repoussé work, and penannular bracelets of rude execution, but rich and ancient designs. As for the merchants, their civility and patience are inexhaustible. One may turn over their whole stock, try on all their bracelets, go away again and again without buying, and yet be always welcomed and dismissed with smiles. L. and the Writer spent many an hour practising Arabic in the Khan Khaleel, without, it is to be feared, a corresponding degree of benefit to the merchants.
There are many other special bazaars in Cairo, as the Sweetmeat Bazaar ; the Hardware Bazaar ; the Tobacco Bazaar ; the Sword-mounters' and Coppersmiths' Bazaars ; the Moorish Bazaar, where fez caps, burnouses, and Barbary goods are sold ; and some extensive bazaars for the sale of English and French muslins, and Manchester cotton goods ; but these last are, for the most part, of inferior interest. Among certain fabrics manufactured in England expressly for the Eastern market, we observed a most hideous printed muslin representing small black devils capering over a yellow ground, and we learned that it was much in favor for children's dresses.
But the bazaars, however picturesque, are far from being the only sights of Cairo. There are mosques in plenty ; grand old Saracenic gates ; ancient Coptic churches ; the museum of Egyptian antiquities ; and, within driving distance, the tombs of the Caliphs, Heliopolis, the Pyramids, and the Sphinx. To remember in what order the present travellers saw these things would now be impossible ; for they lived in a dream, and were at first too bewildered to catalogue their impressions very methodically. Some places they were for the present obliged to dismiss with only a passing glance ; others had to be wholly deferred till their return to Cairo.
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