Page:"Round the world." - Letters from Japan, China, India, and Egypt (IA roundworldletter00fogg 0).pdf/267

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ROUND THE WORLD.

NUMBER THIRTY-ONE.

Cairo—Church Bells do not make a Sabbath—Dragomen—Scenes in Front of the Hotel—Peddlers and Mountebanks—Donkeys and Donkey Boys—A “Donk” with an Illustrious Name—The Fez—The Bazaars—Sprinkling Machines—The “Light of the Harem”—Old Abraham Comes to Grief—The Citadel—The Mamelukes’ Leap—The Great Mosque—Island of Rhoda—Moses in the Bulrushes—The Nilometer—Joseph’s Granaries—The Shoobra Gardens—A Mohamedan’s Paradise—Mohamet Ali—Heliopolis—The Virgins’ Sycamore Tree—Dancing Dervishes.

[From our Special Correspondent.]

Cairo, August 24.

The sound of a sweet toned bell woke me early this morning, and for a moment iz seemed that I must be once more in a Christian land; bnta glance fram my win- dow across the little garden by the side of the hotel showed the sun rising over the domes and minarets of the capital of Egypt, and in the strects below were loug lines of camels, crowds of swarthy Egyptlans all wearing the uhiversal red fez cap, and itt nanvrable donkeys Lalf buried under ener- mous burdens of fresh ent grass. A sonorous bray from one of these would for the monient drown all other sounds, even tie vhatter and clamor of their masters, which js peessuBy except during the hours of darkness. I now fully realized that I was not in America, nor in any other civilized land, and that the sound of the bell did not bring with it the Christian Sabbath. Open: ing the door I clap my hands, and a native servant appears with a tray on which are cefe-tulatt, eggs and bread. Lhe regular breakfast is not served until twelve o'clock, Around the porch of tie Letel, which fuces large aud handsome square, is a scene full of amusement and novelty to the stranger. But before I can reach the door I am assailed by a crowd of gaily-dressed dragomen and guides, all most anxious to serve me, each