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9 8 Oriental Cairo<br />

buying Oriental trophies for his home, because Cohen has<br />

fixed prices and believes in the motto of a famous London<br />

caterer, "Give your customer good value and he'll come<br />

again."<br />

Andalaft has a smaller shop than Cohen, He has only<br />

a small stock of tourists' brass and embroideries : he affects<br />

enamels, and earthenware, old illuminated Korans, mediaeval<br />

armour, and beautiful jewellery, chiefly Persian, which last is<br />

not very expensive as such things go. Mr. Andalaft is a man<br />

of remarkably good taste, indeed fine taste is the character-<br />

istic of his shop. The old Persian arm amulets which he has<br />

collected— flat, heart-shaped gold and silver boxes set with<br />

large turquoises for containing a verse of the Koran, make<br />

delightful ornaments. These and other jewels fill the locked<br />

cases in the front part of his shop. But it is when he takes<br />

you to the back, and commences fingering lovingly old<br />

Persian lustre-ware that you see how different he is from<br />

the other traders in the noisy Khan-el-Khalil. For he is<br />

an enthusiast, and while he shows you his old illuminated<br />

Korans, he stops to point out and translate the passages<br />

which were borrowed from a Christian saint. You ask if a<br />

suit of antique armour is Crusader's armour that has been<br />

hoarded in the Sudan. " Alas, no," he says, and tells you<br />

the points to look out for in armour that has been in Egypt<br />

since St. Louis and all his chiv^alry surrendered to the<br />

Saracens, where the great city of Mansura stands to-day.<br />

But his heart is chiefly with the old enamels and lustre of<br />

Persia ; and his old Persian pictures, and his Persian boxes<br />

— painted with the portraits of famous beauties of Ispahan<br />

and Shiraz, which glow like the lustres and enamel—and his<br />

jade. Mr. Andalaft always strikes one as the artist rather<br />

than the trader ; and he speaks such good English that he<br />

is a valuable aid to a collector. When you have bought<br />

all you care about in his own stock, it is worth while asking<br />

him to step across to Irani's with you. Irani is a good man,<br />

but he speaks no English, and if left to himself opens his<br />

mouth very wide to foreigners.<br />

There are plenty of shops in the Khan-el-Khalil which

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