CHAPTER XXXVIII--THE BAZAARS OF CAIRO.--EGYPTIAN CURIOSITY SHOPS.

_More About the Bazaars--How They Sell Goods in Cairo--Furniture, Fleas, and Filth--Trading in Pipe Stems and Coffee Pots--A Queer Collection of Bric-a-Brac--Driving Close Bargains--A Specimen of Yankee Shrewdness--A Miniature Blacksmith Shop--A Cloud of Perfumes--Gems, Guns, and Damascus Blades--An Arabian Auction--At the Egyptian Opera--The Dancing Girls of Cairo--The Ladies from the Harem--A Scanty Costume--The Ballet of “The Prodigal Son”--The Ladies of the Opera and Their Life._

ONE of the first objects of interest at Cairo is the great centre of trade, known as the bazaars. They are not so compactly arranged as the bazaars of Damascus, or of Constantinople, and in some features they are inferior to those of either of the above cities; but they are nevertheless very interesting, and never fail to charm the visitor.

Suppose you are in the newly added quarter of Cairo--say at the French post-office--and wish to visit the bazaars. You pass along a broad and macadamized street, with French shops on one side and a row of unfinished buildings on the other, that have a Parisian appearance. With two or three turnings in streets of this sort, you arrive at the Mooskee, a broad street--broad for the Orient--leading into the native portion of Cairo.

The Mooskee was once a sort of narrow lane, but was widened by one of the former Pashas, not without opposition on the part of the Moslems. Here the rows of foreign shops continue; they are French, Greek, Italian, English, and German, arranged without any regard to nationalities. At first, they are all foreign; as you advance, you see here and there a shop, attended by a {479}native; and as you go on and on, the natives increase in numbers, and the foreigners decrease. At first the shops have windows and doors, and counters, like those in London or Paris, but as you go on, you find here and there one on the plan of the Orient, the front entirely open, and the goods displayed from within to a customer standing in the street.

Here is a niche where was once a window; it has been walled up, and the stones which close it are about eighteen inches inside the line.

This space would be of no use in the West, but here in the East it has been utilized, and we find a couple of cobblers squatted there, with their benches of tools in front of them. Very small are these benches, and as for the tools, they are not numerous. Further on we see open-fronted shops, tended by foreigners, and close-fronted shops tended by natives; then we come to a section where all the shops are open, and natives are more and more numerous; finally, by turning,--we may go to the right or left, as we choose,--under the shadow of a decaying mosque, we enter the bazaars, and the habits and costumes of the Orientais rise around us.

In many parts of the Mooskee there is a roof thrown quite across the street, a roof consisting mainly of timbers, with openings through which the light can stream and the rain can fall. Some of the Oriental cities have the streets covered, and there are openings here and there, to admit the light. Cairo is not covered, but her streets are so narrow, and the house-tops project so far, that in many places the streets are rather sombre, even at mid-day. Everywhere you see little balconies and projecting windows, the latter covered with wooden grills or lattices, through which women can see without being seen; however brightly the lights of the harem {480}may burn within, they cannot be observed from without. The merchants in the shops find this dimness to their advantage, as it gives to some of their wares the appearance of a fineness which they do not possess.

Turning to the left out of the Mooskee, we entered the bazaar of Khan-Haleel, so named after a Khan, which was built about’ six hundred years ago, and is still standing without much alteration.

We entered the Khan and found a square court yard surrounded by rooms opening upon it, where the merchants who come from other cities display their wares and sleep at night.

The Khan, or caravansary, is of less consequence now than formerly, throughout the parts of the East that have been invaded by railways; in Aleppo, Bagdad and other inland places, its character is still retained. A caravan arrives in a city, and a merchant belonging to it seeks a caravansary, hires a room and displays his goods to whoever wishes to buy. He pays a small rental and takes his meals where he likes; in the smaller towns the master of the Khan will supply him with food, but not so in the large cities. The furniture of the Khan consists generally of matting and fleas in about equal portions; sometimes there is no matting, but the fleas are sure to be on hand, and on the entire body as well. Orientals do not mind them, and I am half inclined to believe that they would be unhappy without those nimble little attendants.

The bazaars in the immediate vicinity of the Khan Haleel are mainly devoted to the sale of pipe stems, coffee pots, and various odds and ends of nearly everything. You can buy tobacco, old {481}coins, boots, and jewelry; and there are several shops whose native owners are devoted to the sale of European nick-nacks.

Further on, you come to the jewelry bazaar; we entered it by a low door, which had a flooring of soft mud, that induced some very careful walking and brought one of our party to temporary grief.

The jewelry bazaar is a curious place. The street is about six feet wide, in some places not over five, and you stand in the street or sit on the front edge of the shop while making your bargains. Not more than two or three persons should go there together; we were six, and we blocked up the whole way, so that it was difficult for us to see anything and for others to get past. The shops were from four to eight feet square, and the stock was partially displayed in a little show-case a foot square and the same in height, and partially kept in a safe in a rear corner. Generally when we examined the articles in the case, the merchant, who was squatted near it, opened his safe and took out something from it. The diminutive extent of the shop enabled him to reach safe, show-case, and everything else, without leaving the place where he was seated. In most cases, when he was obliged to move about, he did it without rising. He hopped along very much as a tame seal moves about in a menagerie.

The selection of jewelry is not large. It consists of ear-drops, brooches and bracelets of fine filigree work, that nearly always includes a crescent, with a few stars of gold or little drops of real or imitation turquoise. Some of the sets are so arranged, that the necklace and brooch form one piece, that can be taken apart so that the necklace will form a pair of bracelets and leave the brooch to be worn separately. Some are of gold, some of silver, and some of silver gilded, and the sets are generally quite cheap in comparison with the prices of jewelry in America and England.

You must bargain a great deal, and if you pay anything like the price asked at first, you are sure to be cheated. Never offer more than half what they ask, and you will do better not to offer more than a third to start with; the merchant will decline at first; then he will fall slowly, and after a time he will be about {482}half way between your first offer and his. You can then come up a little, and if your offer is at all reasonable, he will close with, you, though frequently not till after you have walked away.

To show what can be done by judicious bargaining, let me cite an instance.

One of our party admired a pair of ear-drops, and asked the price.

“Twenty francs,” was the reply.

Buyer declined to be a buyer at that figure, but ventured to offer five francs. The merchant put the jewelry into his box and shook his head. Then our party prepared to leave, and the merchant fell to fifteen francs. Buyer rose to six francs, and after a great deal of haggling, they met at seven francs and a half. In another instance, a trade was made at ten francs for something for which thirty francs had been demanded, and frequently half, or more than half the first price, was taken off to make a trade. An Oriental merchant expects you to bargain for his goods, and is quite surprised if you accept his offer at starting; and if you do it, you can be certain that you have deceived, yourself.

In many of the shops the makers of jewelry were at work; of course we were interested in seeing them. The man sat or squatted on the floor, in front of a small anvil; behind him was a little furnace, with a charcoal fire, which was kept alive by a bellows, worked by a boy or by the foot of the man. The bellows was in keeping with the rest of the equipment of the place--sometimes it was a bag of goatskin, and sometimes it had the shape, and was about the size of a Chinese lantern. The tools consisted of hammers and pinchers, and the men showed great dexterity in working them. Gold and silver are made to take curious shapes in the hands of these fabricants, and some of their performances appeared akin to magic. They had little turning lathes in some of the shops, and occasionally a man would hold with his toe the article which he was endeavoring to put into shape the size of a small egg; there is no saucer, but in its place there is a little socket of the general shape of a flower vase, and into this the cup fits very neatly. They must wear out, or become lost, at a remarkably rapid rate to judge by the quantities that were offered for sale.

The jewelry bazaar has many windings, and, somewhat to our surprise, we came out after many crooks and-turns by a passage-way, only a few feet from where we had entered.

Brass pans and pots for cooking purposes are in demand, and so are plates, on which to serve up sweetmeats. In some of the {483}Not far away from the jewelers is the bazaar of the tinsmiths and workers in brass. Their shops are small, like all shops in the Orient, and their furnaces were much on the same style as those of the workers in gold and silver.

They were hammering brass and tin into a variety of shapes, the most common article being the pots for making coffee, and the little stands that hold the cups. They bring coffee to you in the Orient in a cup about {484}shops they tried to sell us some very ancient plates of Saracenic manufacture, and the rapidity with which they reduced their figures, led me to suspect that the articles were skilful imitations, rather than genuine. The brass and tin bazaars are quite extensive, and the trade in these articles is evidently large.

Constantly, on our way, we were beset by men, who wanted to guide us and act as intermediaries in trade. These fellows hang around the bazaars and make a living in two ways; they get a fee from the stranger and a commission from the merchant, and the commission is generally the most important of the two. It makes little difference whether you take them as interpreters, or hire a dragoman from the hotel; both will have a commission, and sometimes the dragoman is worse than the regular frequenter of the bazaars. After a little practice, and by picking up the numerals and a few other words of Arabic, I was able to do my own shopping, without the intercession of a guide, and found I could get along much better when alone. Many of the merchants understand the French or Italian numerals, or what is more frequently, a combination of the two; with a lingual hash, composed of Arabic, French, and Italian, one can manage to trade very fairly.

You can barter leisurely, or you can go rapidly through many bazaars. You can go in the _Hamzowce_, or silk and cloth bazaar, where silks, cloths, and similar goods are sold, mostly of European manufacture; but as the dealers are all Christians and scoundrels, and the articles they sell are familiar to us, the place is not particularly interesting.

You can go into the _Terbeeah_, or perfume bazaar; and it is here that you buy, or think you buy, the famous “otto of rose.”

I spent the whole of one morning, bargaining for some of it, and at last bought half a dozen bottles, only to be told when I reached the hotel, that I had been cheated in the price. There is a wonderful odor of sandal wood and otto of rose, and a dozen other things in this bazaar, and the rows of bottles and jars behind the turbaned and squatting dealers, form a picture that: is by no means unpleasant. Strips of gilded paper are hung in front of these bazaars, as a sign of the articles sold within. I was unable to ascertain the meaning of them, and concluded {485}that they were arbitrary in their character, like the striped poles that we place in front of a barber’s shop. Here, as everywhere else, you must haggle a good deal about the price, and keep a sharp eye, to see that you get the article you have bought.

There are different localities for different goods. In one bazaar you find cotton and silk stuffs, and in another they have garments made of the same material. In one there are shoes and slippers, in another saddles, and in another flags and tents. Here you find silk and gold cord and lace, and there you can discover stores of precious stones. Here are sugar, almonds, and dried fruit, and there are tobacco and coffee. Here is the market for guns, swords, and arms of various kinds, and there is the market for fowls and vegetables. In the arms bazaar you may {486}find a wilderness of old weapons, and not unlikely you may purchase a sword that flashed in the days of Haroun-al-Rasheed, and helped to spread the faith of Mohammed through the sleepy and careless East.

Among the dealers in gems, you will find diamonds and turquoises in great number, and they will be drawn one by one from the pocket of the merchant and placed in a little box which he holds in his hand. If you like, you may visit the bazaar where old clothes are sold, and if you have a fancy for garments that have done duty on Moslem backs, your desires can be met with the utmost ease. And don’t fail to come to the bazaars on Mondays and Thursdays, and witness the sale of goods at auction. It is not like an American auction, where the dealer stands in one place and has the buyers clustering round him. In this case, the auctioneers go through the market, carrying the goods and calling out the prices that have been offered. This mode of selling gives a fine opportunity for fraud, and it is quite likely that a great deal of it is practised.

Though pretty well tired out when through with the bazaars, we took a turn at the opera house in the evening. I have seen opera and ballet in pretty nearly every city where they make a point of giving them finely, and before coming here, I believed I had seen the very best in existence. The opera house at Cairo is not a large one, but it is quite sufficient for the wants of the present population of theatre-goers. The seats and boxes are well arranged, and I purposely went to various localities during’ the performance, and found I could hear about equally well everywhere. There is a strong company, especially rich in tenor* and soprano voices It was here that I heard the opera peculiar to Cairo, under the name of Aida. Aida was written by Verdi, to the Khedive’s special orders; the scene is laid in Egypt, during the period of the greatest power of the Pharaohs, and the special locations are at Memphis and Thebes. The piece was literally put on the stage without regard to expense; the costumes and scenery were made with the utmost care and attention to details, and in every respect they conform to the period represented. Thus, in the scenery, the temples and the services in them are restored, the actors are dressed as were the ancient {487}Egyptians, and the dialogue is made to conform to the manners and customs of the time. As you sit in the parquette, or in a comfortable box, you are carried back four thousand years to the days when Isis and Osiris were the divinities of the land.

Careful studies were made of the sculptures and paintings on the walls of the temples and tombs of Upper Egypt, so as to secure fidelity in all the details. The rehearsals had evidently been numerous and thorough; I never heard in London or St. Petersburg, Paris or Vienna, Milan or Naples, an opera better rendered, while I have heard a great many whose rendition was far behind it in point of excellence. Aida is popular with the resident opera goers, and if a stranger wishes to see a Cairene audience at its very best, he should attend one of the representations of this opera. The boxes and parquette will be well filled, and he may possibly get a view of the solid form and intelligent face of the Khedive. Opposite the vice-regal box there are several boxes reserved for the ladies of the harem; there is a screen of wire-gauze in front of them, so that the fair occupants can see, without being seen.

There is a ballet called the “Prodigal Son,” with the scene laid in Egypt and with the costumes of the Pharaonic days. It rivals Aida in magnificence, and is generally sure of a good audience or rather _vidience_ as, following the Oriental and European custom, it is all in pantomime, with never a spoken word.

The ballet troupe is quite large, and the action of the piece goes on incessantly for about an hour and a quarter. The costumes and scenery are appropriate,--the former scanty, as with the ballet everywhere, and the latter rich and typical of the place and time represented. The cost of maintaining this troupe must be great, and evidently the ladies composing it are well paid, as they drive daily in fine carriages on the Shoobra road, and dress like countesses, who have fortunes in their own right.

There is a small theatre opposite the opera house, where they give French comedy and light operas, three or four times a week, and give them very well. The opera and ballet are very popular with the ladies of the Khedive’s harem; they prefer the music and dancing of the Occident to that of the Orient, just as they prefer the fashions of Paris to those of Bagdad and Khiva.

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