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The Entertainments of the Arabs 115
performers are European, though the datise a ventre is
generally part of their programme.
As far as can be seen by the naked eye, the Arab does not
share the Jap's enthusiasm for the drama, though every Arab
was born an actor. There is ostensibly but one Arab theatre
in Cairo. Here they incline to a kind of operatic melodrama,
on the lines of our comic opera without the fun or the scenery
or the eirls, but a similar mixture of music and dialogue.
I went there once with a Syrian friend and a rich young
Egyptian, a man-about-town, who was very musical. The
theatre was not much more substantial or costly in its fittings
than a Japanese theatre, which is little more than a shed
in the shape of a circus-tent, with matchwood partitions
between its bo.xes. Half the boxes here had harem-grills
like Sicilian nuns' churches. There were hardly any women
visible ; only tarbtishes in front and turbans behind. They
were playing dear mad Oriental music when we went in. The
Syrian was apologetic. He said, " These people have no
music :
it is all half tones." The Egyptian took up the cud-
gels. "What is music to you is not musical at all to them.
If an Arab goes to the Opera he asks, ' What
are they
shrieking at ? ' " The Syrian retorted with a story about the
Arab who went to the Opera at Paris, and did not care for
any of the music except the tuning up of the orchestra.
But they were the best of friends. The play began half an
hour late. The audience had spent that half-hour in clap-
ping for it. Its title pleased me very much. It was called
The Pardon that Killed.
When the play opened five men in the Arab costume (of
Arabia) were sitting on each side of the stage, with a black in
a red dress, and another Arab always putting his head out of
the door looking for something that was supposed to be
going on behind the stage. They were sitting quite naturally.
The King reclined on a sofa with a sham leopard's skin ;
the others were sitting up. There was an old man, with a
long white beard, to show that he was the funny man ; his
sallies were much appreciated—everybody always clapped
before they heard what he had to say. Then there was a