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The Bazars of Cairo
When the typical tourist has spent all the money she
means to spend in the Turkish Bazar, the dragoman takes her
on to the Scentmakers' Bazar. This, if he would only let
them know it, is in a true Eastern bazar, where things have
hardly altered since the time of the Crusades, and the shopkeeper
sits in the cupboard where he keeps his goods and
takes up nearly all the room, and if he wants to do any work,
such as weaving, has a hole in the floor to accommodate his
legs.
But your dragoman cares for none of these things ;
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he does
not think Arab life worth a glance ; he wants the children
(he regards all tourists as children) to spend their money as
quickly as possible and get back to the hotel. He does not
take them to the bazars for fun ; he takes them to earn
commissions on what they spend, as well as his six-shilling
fee. There are exceptions, of course, but only to the extent
of throwing in a mosque or two.
One of his happy hunting-grounds is the Tentmakers' Bazar,
which might have been designed for tourists. Its shops, in a
sort of arcade which has a College behind it, are larger and
opener, and there is enough colour here for the whole of Cairo.
Most of its shops have their owners hard at work embroidering
till a victim passes ; the floors are covered with embroidery
in the making, the walls with canvases appliqued with texts
from the Koran and caricatures of the tomb-paintings of the
Pharaohs. If you want colour you buy texts; red, white,
and blue blended are the quietest tints used for texts ; they
may have yellow added, and a violent violet and a gaseous
green are also very popular. The colours of some of the
new texts intended for purchase by tourists are crude enough
for a factory-girl's summer hat. But the faded texts which
have done duty for mosque or marriage for many years
are exquisite. Their colouring was probably flowerlike in its
beauty when they were fresh ;
they have faded into tints like
nature's own.
The parodies of the pictures of the Pharaohs are soberer
in their colouring ; the black of hair and the Venetian red
of naked bodies play such a large part in these compositions.
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