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The Old Arab Streets of Cairo 151
sleeping in for the sake of warmth. For these Cairo houses,
with no glass in their windows, can be deadly cold on account
of their draughts and the prevalence of marble and plaster
floors. Where the floors are made of wood they are covered
with plaster.
Here, as in Italy, the summer is the enemy, not the winter.
All provisions are made against heat, the principal being a
kind of screen of boards called a vialhaf, made to meet the
north wind and force it down into the feshak, or some other
apartment underneath it on the same principle as the venti-
lating funnels of a steamer. To warm themselves they use
nothing but charcoal braziers, often of very fine and artistic
patterns. I wanted to buy them and bring them home when-
ever I saw them, but was deterred by the cost of transporting
such a heavy and cumbrous thing. They look like mosque
domes standing on three legs.
The poor people have a much better idea of warming them-
selves, though their houses are very poor, made of mud, one or
two stories high. Even they often have enough room to keep
up the harem idea. Being made of mud, it is only the site of
the house which can present any serious expense. The poor
Egyptians' idea of warming themselves is to build an oven
right across the innermost room at its far end and to sleep on
the top: the thick mud of which it is made prevents them from
being burnt. Sometimes the whole family sleep on the top,
sometimes the father and mother make the children sleep on
the floor. They probably sleep right against the oven ; the
sweet little cherub who sits up aloft takes special care of poor
Egyptians. These poor people's houses I speak of are perhaps
more characteristic of Upper Egypt, for in Cairo the raba
system prevails. The raba is a tenement consisting of one or
two sitting- and sleeping-rooms, a kitchen and a latrine. It
must be remembered that both sexes, except the wealthy
people, who have a Turkish bath in their own house, go to
public baths constantly. These rabas are built over the shops
in the poorer streets. They are easy to recognise from outside,
because they are generally built at an angle to the street
that is to say, instead of there being a flat wall with a window
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