A thousand miles up the Nile, with upwards - NYU | Digital Library ...

CAIRO AND THE GREAT PYRAMID.
Damascus was scarcely more surprised than the writer of these
pages, when she found herself on board the Simla, and
steaming out of the port of Brindisi.
Here, then, without definite plans, outfit, or any kind of
Oriental experience, behold us arrived in Cairo on the 29th
of November 1873, literally, and most prosaically, in search of
fine weather.
But what had memory to do with rains on land, or storms
at sea, or the impatient hours of quarantine, or anything dismal
or disagreeable, when one awoke at sunrise to see those greygreen
palms outside the window solemnly bowing their plumed
heads towards each other, against a rose-coloured dawn ? It
was dark last night, and I had no idea that my room overlooked
an enchanted garden, far-reaching and solitary, peopled with
stately giants beneath whose tufted crowns hung rich clusters
of maroon and amber dates. It was a still, warm morning.
Grave grey and black crows flew heavily from tree to tree, or
perched, cawing meditatively, upon the topmost branches.
Yonder, between the pillared stems, rose the minaret of a very
distant mosque ; and here where the garden was bounded by
a high wall and a windowless house, I saw a veiled lady walking
on the terraced roof in the midst of a cloud of pigeons.
Nothing could be more simple than the scene and its acces-
sories ; nothing, at the same time, more Eastern, strange, and
unreal.
But in order thoroughly to enjoy an overwhelming, inefface-
able first impression of Oriental out-of-doors life, one should
begin in Cairo with a day in the native bazaars ; neither
buying, nor sketching, nor seeking information, but just taking
in scene after scene, with its manifold combinations of light and
shade, colour, costume, and architectural detail. Every shopfront,
every street corner, every turbaned group is a ready-made
picture. The old Turk who sets up his cake -stall in the
recess of a sculptured doorway ;
the donkey-boy with his gaily
caparisoned ass, waiting for customers ; the beggar asleep on
the steps of the mosque ; the veiled woman filling her water
jar at the public fountain—they all look as if they had been
put there expressly to be painted.
Nor is the background less picturesque than the figures.