The Boy Travellers in the Far East, Part Fourth. Thomas Wallace Knox
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great streets in New York, where dozens or hundreds of clerks are employed to wait on customers, and where the population of a small town might all be attended to at once. A shop in Cairo or any other city of the East is generally about six feet square, and often not so large, and it requires only one man to tend it, for the simple reason that he can reach everything without moving from his place, and there would be no room for any one else. Sometimes he has an assistant, but if so, he does nothing himself except sit still and talk to the customers, while the assistant does all the work of showing the goods. The front of the shop is open to the street, and the floor is about as high as an ordinary table, so that when the goods are spread on the floor the customer can examine them as he stands outside. We shall see more of these shops when we get to the bazaars.
"While we were standing near a shop we saw the owner shutting it up, which he did by folding some wooden doors, very much like the wooden window-shutters we have at home; then he fastened them with a great padlock, and started off with the key, which must have weighed a pound at least. While we wondered at the size of the lock and key, the Doctor called our attention to a man with a cluster of wooden sticks over his shoulder, and told us that the sticks were the keys of a house. What funny things they were! Each of them was nearly if not quite a foot long, and had a lot of wooden pegs near the end; the pegs fit into corresponding holes in a wooden bolt, in the same way that[Pg 61]
[Pg 62] the different wards of a key fit into a lock, but the whole thing is so simple that it does not require much skill for a burglar to get into a house. The keys are so large that they must be slung over the shoulder or fastened to the belt, since they cannot go into an ordinary pocket.
"The Doctor proposed that we should sit down in front of a café and drink some of the famous coffee of the East. Of course we were glad to do so, and our guide took us to a place in a side street where he said they made excellent coffee, and we could have some music along with it.
"We were quite as interested in the music as in the coffee, and thought of the old adage about killing two birds with one stone. We heard the music before we reached the place, and what odd music it was!
"'That is a regular band of music,' said the guide, 'such as the coffee-houses keep to attract customers, and the rich people hire to play for them when they give an entertainment. You see there are four pieces, and I'll explain what they are, beginning from the left.
"'The man on the left is playing on a nay, or flute, which is a reed about eighteen inches long, with a mouthpiece at one end. It has six holes for the fingers, and is blown in a peculiar way, so that a person not accustomed to the nay would be unable to make any sound with it at first.'
"Frank asked if there was any other kind of flute. The guide told him there were several, but this was the most common. The Doctor added that this form of instrument was very old, as it could be seen pictured on some of the monuments of ancient Egypt, and appeared to have been used exactly as it is to-day. Some forms of it were blown into sidewise, as with the European flute, while others were blown at the end.
"'The man next to the end is playing on a kemenjah or fiddle,' said the guide. 'The body of it is made of a cocoa-nut-shell, with a piece of fish-skin or some other thin membrane stretched over it, and the "bridge" rests on this thin covering. There are only two strings, and they are vibrated by means of a bow, just like what you see at home, though the shape is a little different. The long top-piece of the fiddle is of wood, while the lower end is of iron, and rests on the floor or ground. The performers are quite skilful, and it would surprise you to know how much music they can get out of a fiddle with only two strings.
"'The next man has a tamboora, or lute, which corresponds to the guitar, or banjo of Western countries. There are many sizes and shapes of this instrument, but the most common is the one you are looking at.
"'The most perfect tamboora is about four feet long, and has ten strings and forty-seven stops. Some of them cost a great deal of money, as they are made of valuable woods, and inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl. The form in use by the man in the band is called the ood, to distinguish it from the other varieties of the tamboora. It is about two feet long, and you observe that the handle bends back very sharply to accommodate the fingers of the player. A smaller variety of this instrument is called the sadz, and very often forms part of a soldier's equipment. As you travel about Egypt you will often see a soldier playing on the sadz, which he accompanies with his voice.
"'The next and last man of the party has a darabookah, a sort of drum, which he holds under his left arm while he plays on it with the fingers of his right hand. The body of the instrument is of earthen-ware or of wood, and a skin or membrane is stretched over the large end. It has changed its shape very little in three thousand years. You see pictures of the darabookah on the walls of the tombs, and on other ancient monuments of Egypt, and the manner of playing it is the same as of old.'
"So much, for the band of music, which I am sure will interest you. We sat down on little chairs, so low that it seemed like sitting on the floor, and then coffee was brought to us in little brass cups about as large as an egg shell, but a great deal thicker. Each cup had a holder of brass filigree work, with a knob or handle at the bottom, and we were expected to grasp the latter, and not to touch the cup with our hands. The coffee was in a pot, also of brass, and the whole service—pot, cups, and holders—was on a tray of the same material. The trays, with the brightly-polished utensils upon them, looked very pretty, and we resolved to buy some of these coffee services to send to our friends at home.
"We can't say much for the coffee, though possibly we may come to like it in time. It is made much thicker than with us, and if you let it stand for a minute before drinking, you will find a sediment at the bottom like fine dust. The servants stand ready to take away the cups as soon as you are done drinking, and they do it by holding out both hands, bringing one beneath and the other on top of the cup and holder. We watched them for some time, and did not once see them take hold of a cup as one would do in America. While waiting they stood with their hands crossed at the waist, and we were told that this is the proper attitude for a servant in Egypt."
Chapter V.
A RAMBLE THROUGH THE BAZAARS OF CAIRO.
From the café Doctor Bronson and his young friends continued their excursion in the direction of the bazaars, which both the boys were impatient to visit. They had heard and read of the bazaars of Cairo, and the strange things to be seen in them, and as they went along the Doctor supplemented what they already knew by an explanation of the differences between Oriental and Occidental shopping.