A pilgrimage to the temples and tombs of Egypt, Nubia, and ...

WEDDING PROCESSIONS. 89
string, accompanied by singing and clapping of
hands, the whole producing such a tifitamarre as
would have driven an Italian Maestro stark mad.
(If harmony was not better understood in Eng-
land in the reign of our Elizabeth, than it is
in Egypt in the nineteenth country, I can well
understand why the term, " a noise of music,^'
was then given to a band. This pai' parenthese,)
After the musicians came the barber's apparatus,
a machine very much like Punch's show-box,
and covered all over with gilding; this was
mounted upon a camel, whose red morocco
housings were beautifully ornamented with cow-
rie shells. Then followed that important func-
tionary, the barber himself; and finally came a
led horse very richly caparisoned, with a velvet
saddle all covered with gold embroidery and
tassels, and upon this horse was seated the little
boy who was on that day to fulfil the first rite
of the Mahometan faith. The child was very
richly dressed in girl's clothes, having his hair
plaited in a number of tresses, adorned with
small gold coins, as the women wear their's in this
country. He held an embroidered handkerchief
to his face, and was supported on the horse upon
either side by a male relative, followed by a num-
ber of others walking in rows of seven or eight.