ABSTRACT
But near me there was a stream of colour passing by — a black-faced rogue of ten summers was waving a yellow duster, emitting, apparently, chickens, plates, laughter and mystery, in the face of a spectacled and but half-convinced Briton: a smart upholder of the law marched down the arcade resplendent in a dark blue uniform, red tarbush, gilt buttons, and carrying behind his spine a silver-topped black cane. A brace of “Malojans” entered (looking, if they did not feel, extremely foolish, as it was at the moment pelting) mushroomed beneath two enormous solah topees; and a small bootblack, garbed in a galabeah which may have been white four months ago, endeavoured to put a shine on the boots of an Egyptian gentleman whose face would have been a lasting and compelling advertisement to Day and Martin. Suddenly my eye was caught by the ash of knives, and I beheld half a dozen ascending and descending in alarming proximity to my person, while a conjuring musician in yellow and green chanted discordant noises in rhythm to the mercifully soon-interrupted exercise. Up struck “Yip-i-addy”; and, the rain having ceased, I le the café. en I wandered to the mosque, similar to a hundred I have seen in Cairo, Constantinople and Algiers; squelched the mud in the Arab quarter; watched the local baker inserting loaves into his oven and ejecting stray cats from his doorway; thrust my hands deep into my pockets in the native, and thieving, densely crowded market; and nally returned to the ship.
