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CAIRO
CHAPTER XXIII
Arab Domestic Processions
is full of prizes for the photographer. The Arab
loves pageants, and is as fond of being the central
figure in a show as Mr. Roosevelt himself. His two great
opportunities for it are getting married and going on a
pilgrimage to Mecca, or rather returning from one. I imagine
that there must be a sort of undertaker ; perhaps there is a
whole profession of them to supply the palanquins and camel-
trappings and banners and bands which characterise the pro-
cessions of both kinds. At any rate, the same procession did
duty for a number of pilgrims, as I know from my own kodak.
Sometimes the processions are much longer and more elaborate
than at others, I suppose in proportion to the amount of
money which the family is willing to pay the undertaker.
Large or small, the processions are always gorgeous and
barbaric, and their approach is always heralded by a tumtuming
and cymballing of wild Oriental music.
I hardly ever went out in the streets without my kodak,
and if I was in the hotel when I heard those weird sounds I
always flew for my kodak and flew out into the street. And
it was seldom that there was not something worth photo-
graphing even when one had scores of photographs of
palanquins and camel bands.
There is a regular pilgrim season in Cairo, just before the
return of the Holy Carpet from Mecca. The private pilgrims
move more quickly. Their arrival causes great excitement.
In the old Arab part of Cairo making a pilgrimage to Mecca
is still such an event that, when the pilgrim returns, they paint
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