orientalcairocit00sladuoft

2^6 Oriental Cairo
houses were decorated with palm branches and flowers ; the
shop fronts and the windows were Hned with eager women,
who forgot their veils in their ecstasy ; and though it was
three in the afternoon of a brilliant summer day all the
lamps and chandeliers were lit. There was a babel of sound ;
the crowd shrilled in their happiness ; the water-carriers
struck notes as clear as a bell with their brazen saucers,
and the drums and the hautboys, the bagpipes and the
cymbals clashed out the noises of the Orient. In the centre
of the crowd the Hadji was bending forward on his saddle
to kiss his friends with a glow of ecstasy on his face. All
round him were grouped the dignitaries on their white
asses, and a few yards off were his family crowded into
a closed carriage covered with a richly brocaded cloth, in
a state which could only be described as seraphic.
I had to leave that procession : it must have taken hours to
eo down a street so narrow as the Bab-el-Bahr. The Emir of
the Hadj himself had not such a fine procession.
I saw many Mecca pilgrim processions in Cairo—some
more, some less resplendent, and I enjoyed them most when
I had taken all the kodaks I wanted, and could not find one
fresh element to make a note of. Then I could abandon
myself to the spectacular effects, in which I simply delighted.
Whenever I heard that mad Oriental music in the distance, I
made a bee-line for it, and found something delightful,
whether the tall camels in their mediaeval scarlet caparisons
and the swaying palanquins and the waving banners and
emblems, were coming up the broad Street of the Gamely
along the front of Cook's and Shephcard's and the Continental
in the midst of the semi-European traffic, or were forcing their
way by inches through the more native streets hung with
banners and lanterns. I never saw one in the bazars, but few
people live in them ; they are merely shops ; and the police
may have something to say on the subject.
But I have seen a wedding procession passing through the
Bazar sometimes, and to the European eye there is not much
difference between a wedding procession and a pilgrim
procession. The same camel-bands and palanquins and mas-