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How to Shop in Cairo lor
London, a beautiful deep Cambridge blue, quite distinct
from the sky-blue of the best turquoises, and the very pale
blue of the low-priced turquoises from Australia which the
Italians use in making their cheap turquoise jewellery. I
know of no more exquisite blue. You will find extremely
beautiful effects also among matrix-stones flecked over with
black or brown. If you place one alongside of the dull blue
matrix-turquoises which are sold in London, you will never
want to buy the latter again.
These you can buy from the Indians in the bazar at a very
moderate price, if you are a good bargainer; and they are not
outrageously dear things to buy if you pay three times the
proper price for them. Their fault is that they are apt to go
green or pale.
From the Indians also you can buy matrix-turquoises,
from the good Persian mines, hard stones, of a beautiful
bright blue which does not change its colour, and some
of them with very few flaws, and not very dear. These
" Persian " matrix-stones are most covetable. Very covetable
also are the matrix-stones of a dark bright blue, darker than
cornflowers. I do not know where they come from, but,
when they are beautiful, they are the dearest of all the matrix-
stones to buy from these Indians.
Below them come the common turquoises, mostly set in
large brass rings, and some of them quite green, but really
rather pretty. They are found in Egyptian territory, and I
have bought large ones for as little as sixpence each.
There remain the very soft turquoises, badly cut, badly
polished, but without flaws, and often of a beautiful turquoise
blue, shaped almost like a beehive, which the Arabs are so
fond of wearing in their large silver rings : these are almost
as cheap as the last, but they sometimes go green and dull
directly, and hardly ever keep their beauty. Buy these
rings from the donkey-boys and hawkers you see wearing
them. Three shillings each is a good price for them, and
the settings are often old and beautifully worked by Sudanese
silversmiths. You can easily have another stone set in
them.