the natives. I too usually spent the winter in Upper Egypt on board my dahabia, and in this way came to hear some of the stories and be made acquainted with the beliefs and customs of the natives of that part of the country. My servants, however, were Cairenes, and their folk-lore, accordingly, was also Cairene.
But between Cairene and Upper Egyptian folk-lore a broad line must be drawn. The population of Cairo is non-Egyptian; that of Upper Egypt is the purest in Egypt. Cairo was the creation of the Arab conquerors of Egypt, and the centre of the vast settlements of Arab tribes which were intended to garrison and overawe the native population. My servant, for example, from whom the majority of my stories was derived, belonged to a family which still bore the name of Makkawwi, "Meccan," their ancestors having originally come from Mecca and having had land given to them at Helwân by one of the early Khalifs.
Cairo, however, is something more than an Arab creation. It has been for many centuries the meeting-place of Mohammedan cosmopolitanism. It is there that the chief university of Mohammedanism, El-Azhar, still carries on its old teaching; in Fatimite days it was the home of oriental art and science, and throughout the middle ages pilgrims and colonists from all parts of the Mohammedan world—China, Persia, Africa or Spain—gathered together there. One result of this mixture of races and traditions was The Thousand and One Nights.
The folk-lore of Cairo, therefore, may be coloured by the Egyptian atmosphere, but it is not really Egyptian. It reflects rather the Arab mind, tinctured and influenced by Syria and Persia and even China, but with a distinct and characteristic flavour of its own. Many of the Cairene stories have an underlying sarcastic humour which reminds us of the Parisian gamin. Take, for instance, the story of the man with two sons, one of whom was a thief and
