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74 Oriental Cairo
by the auctioneers, who walk about with strings of the bright
yellow shoes of Tunis hung all over them like necklaces ;
and the carpet-covered dikkas or benches outside the shops
have gay Arab figures reposing on them, or sitting up with
their hands clasped round their knees.
The Silk Bazar and the Suk-el-Attarin, or Scentmakers'
Bazar are the most truly Oriental of all, and their shops are
the smallest and most cupboard-like ; their proprietors the
most addicted to sitting on the counter and filling up the
whole front. Dikkas and conversation are the features here ;
shoes and blankets supply the colour.
Unless the tourist knows something of the value of scent
there is friction in the Suk-el-Attarin, or Perfume Bazar
rather a glorified name for the row of half-empty dark
cupboards which constitute it. In Tunis the shops of the
scentmakers are the handsomest in the bazars, with their
brass, and their glass, and their panelling, their gorgeous
phials, and their dandies descended from the nobles of
Granada. Here an ordinary shopkeeper sits in his dark
recess, with a few dirty bottles of gilt glass on the shelf
beside him, and a few cheap and gaudy gilt bottles of a
smaller size, and ivory balls with cavities for scent on the floor
in front of him. As you pass, the spider pulls the stopper
out of one of his scent-bottles and rubs it on your sleeve.
"There!" he says. "Smell it. Is it not beautiful ? There
is no scent like it in the world. What will you have ?
Otto of roses, jasmine, amber, or banana scent ? " As
if anybody wanted to smell of eating bananas !
He
—
could
make a much better scent of orange-peel. The Portogallo
made by the monks of Santa Maria Novella from orange-
peel is as fine as eau-de-colognc.
The shop looks so humble that the tourist generally says
that she will buy some scent, probably jasmine, which is really
delicious. " I low much ? " says the man. " An ounce ? "
An ounce bottle is a modest-looking affair, so she says, " Yes,"
and is requested to pay about a sovereign. She refuses.
The dragoman says, " You must buy it now, because he
has poured it out for you. Each drop costs so much, that