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The Approach to the Native City 67
over the Nile bridge all the day long to supply them.
They come nicely into a kodak, but they are not nice for
anything else.
In the Ataba-el-Khadra every one who is not trying to
catch a tram or fly across it in an arabeah, is standing
about, whether he is porter on the edge of the market
waiting for a job, with a knot of rope over his shoulder and
a blue gown down to his ancles, or a bedaiviii sheikh.
The firemen of the big fire-station on the Ataba generally
go to sleep on the pavement. The occupation of Egypt, as
Sir Eldon Gorst said, is going to sleep in unsuitable places.
No place can be too unsuitable. The poor Egyptian will go
to sleep in any place at any time. He will even sleep in
the road in Cairo, trusting to the traffic's avoiding him. The
gutter is a very favourite place ; it is as dry as anywhere
else, and the sleeper cannot roll off it as he might off the
railings of the Esbekiya. But he uses the pavement most.
It was sometimes quite difficult to get along on account
of the number of men lying about with their faces covered
like corpses, sleeping as soundly as the dead. It would
have reminded me of Messina if I had gone to Egypt after
the earthquake. And the Egyptian takes his siesta in the
morning as well as the afternoon.
The Egyptian adapts himself to circumstances. I saw an
Egyptian adapting himself to circumstances in the Atabael-Khadra,
which is the most public place in the town, by
taking off his trousers because it was raining. He was
afraid of spoiling them.
It is only in really native streets that your way is blocked
up with fat-tailed sheep except at the Greek Passover.
The Arab loves to keep a fat-tailed sheep tied up outside
his shop. Why, I never could learn, but the dragomans
thought it was to eat the garbage like a pig. In any case
the fat-tailed sheep is a disgusting object even when it is
painted in stripes and wears a silver necklace with a child's
shoe tied to it. Its tail is like a bladderful of melted lard.
If the Ataba is a tangle of trams, buses, carriages,
donkeys, camels, firemen, soldiers, police, pedlars, sugar-