ABSTRACT
After turning the corner, and leaving the buildings of the stud on the left, one begins to realise the animation of this great city. The road which goes around the square of the Esbekieh has no more than a scanty avenue of trees to protect one from the sun, but there are stone houses of considerable height and these break up the dusty rays which the sun casts upon one side of the street only. Usually, the place is very busy, very noisy, crowded with 27women selling oranges, bananas, and green sugar-cane, whose sweet pulp the people chew with great delight. Then, too, there are singers, wrestlers, and serpentcharmers with great snakes coiled about their necks, and one particular form of entertainment which seems to materialise some of the images in Rabelais' quaint fancies. A jolly old man dances on his knee little dolls like those of our Savoyards, with a thread running through the body, but the pantomimes which he makes them perform are by no means so decent. But they have nothing to do with the famous Caragueuz, who, as a rule, only appears in shadow-plays. A delighted crowd of women, children, and soldiers naively applauds these shameless marionettes. In another place is a man with some monkeys, who has trained a huge baboon to beat off with a stick the stray dogs which the children set upon him. Farther on, the road becomes narrower and darker, as the buildings become higher. On the left is the monastery of the dancing dervishes, who give a public performance every Tuesday; then we come to a gateway, over which is a large stuffed crocodile which marks the house whence set forth the carriages which cross the desert between Cairo and Suez. These carriages are very light, in shape rather like our prosaic one-horse cabs, so open that they let in all the wind and dust, though doubtless this cannot be helped. Their iron wheels have two sets of spokes, starting from either side of the hub and meeting on the narrow circle which serves as a rim. These Strange-looking wheels cut through the ground rather than travel over it.
