orientalcairocit00sladuoft

Arab Domestic Processions 253
road there is a sunken mosque, very popular with the friends
of pilgrims. Here the materiel for the processions is kept
and here the coolies who are going to take part in it hang
about. They are a ruffianly lot, as bad as the coolies who
put on the uniforms of a Chinese regiment when the Colonel
is obliged to show some men as well as draw the pay and
provisions. I expect they have a good deal of treating and
correspond to the loafers who hang about big sporting events
in Anglo-Saxon countries.
I paid more than one visit to the purlieus of that mosque
to see the grand palanquins made of ebony and ivory and
silver reposing on the dust ; the camels in their grand
clothes kneeling down because they had their knees tied like
the fashionable women of to-day ; the banners and emblems
propped against the railings, and the masqueraders who hadn't
yet got their masques on.
The odd thing is that, whether the procession is for a
pilgrim returning from the Holy City or a person entering
on the holy estate, the element of Comedy is in the fore-
ground.
Long before the train could possibly arrive, sometimes 1
expect, not long after it has left Suez, some hours away, the
procession goes and forms outside the railway station— which
is very useful to kodakers.
At last the Hadji arrives. Even then it is some time
before the band strikes up its barbaric clash and jingle and
bumming, and the slow serpent moves forward. So slow
is it that while the procession was actually on the march
I used to go backwards and forwards, kodaking and taking
notes about its various features. The people in the procession
had not the least objection to being kodaked, but their
anxiety for bakshish interfered with their ceremonial
exercises.
I remember one very splendid procession which began
with a man balancing on his nose a bouquet big enough for
a Jack on the Green. He was followed by three attendants,
one of whom carried an enormous lantern with a mesJirebiya
work frame, and the others the shields made of mirror in