*

It is impossible not to feel here, as elsewhere in the East, that the national character and manners are influenced by the desert, as those of maritime races by the sea. This fateful repose, this strange stillness, this universal melancholy in men's aspects, and in their voices, as you note them in quiet conversation, or in the musical pathos of the muezzin's cry,—the intent but composed eagerness with which they listen to the wild romances of the desert, for which even the donkey-boy pauses, and stands, leaning upon his arms across his beast, and following in imagination the fortunes of Aboo Seyd, or the richer romances of the Thousand and One Nights-all this is of the desert,--this is its silence articulated in Art and Life.

The bazaars and busy streets of Cairo are as much thronged as the quays of Naples. Through the narrow ways swarms a motley multitude, either walking or bestriding donkeys, but the wealthier and official personages upon foot. The shouts of the donkey-boys are incessant; and when a pacha's coming is announced by the imperative crack of the long whip, flourished by an Arab runner in short white drawers and tarboosh or red cap, the excitement and confusion in a street, which a carriage almost chokes, becomes frenzied. The conceited camels groping through the crowd, are jambed and

pushed against the horses; the donkestrians are flattened sideways in the same manner. Pedlars of all kinds crowd to the wall, there is a general quarrelling and scolding, as if every individual were aggrieved that any other should presume to be in the way, while suddenly in the midst, through the lane of all this lazy and cackling life, rumbles the huge carriage, bearing a white-bearded, fat Turk to the council or the hareem. Only the little donkeys stand then for democracy, and persist in retaining their tails where, for the purposes of honourable obeisance to the dignitary, their heads should be, and receive a slashing cut for their inflexible adherence to principles.

Through this restless crowd in the dim, unpaven, high-walled streets of Cairo, strings of camels perpetually pass, threading the murmurous city life with the desert silence. They are like the mariners in tarpaulins and pea-jackets, who roll through the streets of sea-ports and assert the sea. For the slow, soft tread of the camel, his long, swaying movement, his amorphous and withered frame, and his level-lidded, unhuman and repulsive eyes, like the eyes of demons, remind the Cairene of the desert, and confirm the mood of melancholy in his mind. The donkey is the feet and carriage of the Cairene.

Old Beppo, the legless beggar of the Spanish steps in Rome, given to fame by Hans Christian Andersen, in his Improvisatore, was oriental in many ways, but most in the luxury of the Donkey, with which he indulged himself. And practically, the Cairenes might be all legless Beppos. With the huge red slippers dangling at the sides of the tottering little beasts, the toes turned upward in an imbecile manner, and gliding at right-angles with the animal just above the ground, the sad-eyed, solemn Cairene would hardly enamour the least fastidious of Houris, should he so caracole to the gates of Paradise.

The donkeys are like large dogs, and of easy motion. Each is attended by a boy, who batters and punches him behind. Your cue is resignation. You are only the burthen borne. Nor is it consonant with your dignity to treat as a horse an animal that scarcely holds your feet above the ground, and that occasionally tumbles from under you, leaving you standing in a picturesque bazaar, the butt of Muslim youth.

And woe to you if on your cockle-shell of a donkey you encounter the full-freighted galleon of a camel. Dismount, stop, fly-or a bale of Aleppo gold-stuffs, or brilliant carpets from Bagdad, surging along upon the camel, will dash you and your

donkey-miserable wrecks against the sides of

the bazaar.

"The camels are ready."

Täib, täib kateir, good, very good, Commander, but bear a moment longer, while I gaze finally from the balcony, and remember Cairo."

You will go daily to the bazaar, because its picturesque suggestions are endless, and because the way leads you by the spacious mosques, broadly striped with red and blue, and because in the shaded silence of the interior you will see the strange spectacle of a house of God made also a house of man. There congregate the poor and homeless, and ply their trades. At nightfall, as some rich pilgrim turns away, he orders the Sakka, or water-carrier, to distribute the contents of his water-skin among the poor. In the silence, and under the stars, as he pours the water into the wooden bowls of the beggars, the Sakka exclaims, "Hasten, O thirsty, to the ways of God!"-then breaks into a mournful singing-"Paradise and forgiveness be the lot of him who gave you this

By day and night a fountain plays in the centre of the court, singing and praising God. The children play with it, and sleep upon the marble pavement. The old men crone in the shadow, and

moulder in the sun. The birds flutter and fly, and alight upon the delicate points of the ornaments; and wheeling, the pavement ripples in their waving shadow. Five times a day the Muezzin calls from the minaret, "God is great, come to prayer;" and at midnight, "Prayer is better than sleep ;" and at daybreak, "Blessing and peace be upon thee, O Prophet of God, O Comely of Countenance!"

You pass on to the bazaars.

No aspect of life in any city is so exciting to the imagination as the oriental bazaars. They are narrow streets, walled by the lofty houses from whose fronts project elaborate lattices, and on each side is a continuous line of shops, which are small square cells in the houses, entirely open to the street, and raised two or three feet above it. the whole, between the house-tops, is stretched a canopy of matting, shutting out the sky.

Over

In the little niches, or shops, surrounded by their wares, sit the turbaned merchants, silent or chatting solemnly, smoking and sipping coffee, or bending and muttering in prayer.

A soft mellow shadow permeates the space, or golden glints of sunlight flash through the rents in the matting above. There is no noise but the hushed murmuring of a crowd, sometimes the