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A WOOL-CLEANEH AT WORK 423
and touching the hair. With a wooden mallet he
strikes the strings lightly and sets them twanging
harmoniously, his other hand rocks the bow, and
allows its back to strike the wall. Between the
tap of bow on wall comes a tap of strings with
mallet ; and what with the time he keeps and the
soundincr strino^s, there is a semblance to the distant
sound of a drum and harps ; and then having
got into stride with bow and tapping he begins to hum
a tuneless song. It is a matter of a few seconds only
before the hair begins to rise in a soft clean heap
around the bow. It goes on rising, and he slightly
stirs it, pulls the lower part more under the strings,
adds more dirty hair, changes the position of the bow
a little, but keeps up the rocking and tap-tapping.
Under the vibrating strings the hair grows into a
heap in size like a table ; but still he goes on, while
a cloud of fine dust fills the room. When he stops
he has produced a great mound of soft hair, beneath
which is a shovelful of sand and dirt. So he goes
on, in the cool shade of his cloister, singing sometimes,
twanging and tap-tapping always, and filling
one side of the little vault with clean hair as the
result of a day's work ; but also cutting short his life
by breathing the dust which his industry creates.
The courts and alleys of Aleppo stand for mystery
and suggestion—the bazaars for the unchanging East,
the khans for an ancient commerce like that of the
medieval Belgian cities ; but the citadel is history
made visible. It displays the warlike story of Aleppo,
chiefly a story of wars between Mohammedans, though
by fantastic tradition the structure is said to have
been built in the time of Abraham. It has known,
however, Bagdad Khalifs—including Haroun el Rash id
—Syrian Seljuks, Arab Emirs, Mongols, Egyptians, and
the inevitable and most potent Timur. Christians,
too, have been before it in war as Crusaders and
Byzantines. It tells also, with a little study, another
and subsidiary story of life and government in the
city, of trouble between rulers and ruled during long