orientalcairocit00sladuoft

58 Oriental Cairo
stick of Edinburgh rock several feet high, striped Hke a
barber's pole. But he prefers the rond-pont in the Musky,
or the Market of the Afternoon.
Early in the season there were Nubians squatting on the
pavement with mandarin oranges piled like cannon-balls on
the pavement in front of them, ten for a penny farthing.
The nut and dried-bean sellers had to have costermongers'
trucks : their wares were so numerous. The chestnut roasters
pleased me very much. The Esbckiya is surrounded by
young trees, which have circular spaces about a yard wide
cut in the pavement to receive them. To guard their roots,
these spaces are covered with gratings except for a few
inches round the trunk. The chestnut-seller lights his fire
in this hole, which is as good as a stove ; no one interferes
with him or sees any harm in it. The trees don't seem to
mind it either : perhaps they are glad of the warmth in the
winter. At night the coffee-sellers and the men who sell
cups of hot sago bring their steaming wares here ; but they
have proper stoves and do not use the gratings.
The whipmakers, who congregate on the G.P.O. side,
prefer a tree with palings to tie their lashes to while they
are being plaited, and to hang them on for sale. This is a
great place for cabs, and the Arab cabman uses his whip
the whole time. Whenever he breaks it he drives furiously
up to a whipmaker, who hands him a new one, as a groom
hands a fresh club to a polo player in the middle of a
cJiukker. No money passes, just as no money passes when
the cabman dashes up to the candle-seller at lighting-up
time ; but I am sure that the humble vendor only keeps
his books in his head.
The Arab shops in the street more than most people. The
Esbekiya railings are a rent-free shop in a busy thoroughfare
; uncommonly handy for displaying a two-penny-halfpenny
stock-in-trade. Everything the unsophisticated native
requires is here. The barber sits on the railings while his
patients stand patiently in front of him to have their heads
shaved. The tailor sometimes hangs his temptations on the
railings, but more often keeps them folded on his shoulders.