and fragrant as the morning; or baskets of strawberries red and bright
as rubies. Dignified Arabs stalked by, bearing on nobly poised heads
pots of growing rose-bushes or arum lilies, or azaleas. Jet-black
giants, wound in rainbow-striped cottons, clanked brass saucers like
cymbals, advertising the sweet drinks in their glass jars, while memory
whispered in my ears the Arab name "sherbetly." Across the street,
clear silver-gold sunshine of winter in Egypt shone on precious stones,
on carved ivories, silver anklets, Persian rugs, and embroideries,
brilliant as hummingbirds' wings, all displayed in the windows of shops
where dark eyes looked out eagerly for buyers. Everything was for sale,
for sale to the strangers! The whole clamouring city seemed to consist
of one vast, concentrated desire on the part of brown people to sell
things to fair people. They shouted and wheedled and besought on the
sidewalks; and the roadway between was a wide river of colour and life.
Motor cars with Arab chauffeurs carried rich Turks to business, or to
an audience of State. Now and then a face of ivory glimmered through a
gauzy veil and eyes of ink and diamonds shot starry glances from
passing carriage windows. Erect English women drove high dog-carts.
Gordon Highlanders swung along in the kilt, more at home in Cairo then
in Edinburgh, the droning of their pipes as Oriental as the drone of a
raeita, or the beat of tom-toms. A wedding party with a hidden bride in
a yellow chariot, met a funeral, and yashmaked faces peeped from
curtained windows, in one procession, to stare at the wailing, marching
men of the other, and to shrink back hastily from the sight of the
coffin. Tangled it would seem inextricably with streams of traffic,
surging both ways, moved the "ships of the desert," loaded with
emerald-green bersim; long, lilting necks, and calm, mysterious eyes of
camels high above the cloaked heads of striding Bedouins, heads of
defiant Arab prisoners, chained and handcuffed to each other; heads of
blue-eyed water buffaloes, and heads of trim white, tasselled donkeys.