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Arab Domestic Processions 257
qiieraders do duty in both. In either case, in the native town,
the approach to the house for a long way is decorated with
lanterns and red and white flags, and if there is space in the
street a grand marquee is erected in front of the house, lined
with texts from the Koran in gorgeous colours, and hung with
lanterns and often richly carpeted and furnished. This is for
the male friends, but at marriages they generally find their
way into the houses, and go to all sorts of places which are
forbidden technically. Egyptians are very slack in those
matters. What goes on at a wedding inside a grand house I
have described in Queer Things About Egypt, published a few
months ago, in the chapter entitled " Chips from the Court."
The Arabs spend a great deal on weddings ; there is a
street which runs parellel with the Musky on the north side.
When the Musky was very crowded and I was in a hurry, I
used to strike into it, because I hate elbowing my way. It was
quite a long street. One day when I turned up into it to get
out of a crowd I was surprised to find that it had disappeared,
its place being taken by a long hall closed from the sky,
carpeted, hung with chandeliers and lanterns, walled in with
gay awnings, furnished with lounges and decorated with
growing palm-trees all the way along. I asked Ali, who was
with us, what had happened. He said, " Two people marry,"
refering, I think, to a single wedding. At the back of the
El-Moayj^ad mosque once I came upon a whole square, quite
a large one, which had been converted into a marquee for
a wedding.
The best wedding marquee we saw during our stay in
Cairo was outside the large house in the angle made by the
Sharia El-Tabbana and the Merdani mosque. It was lined
with very grand texts from the Koran, and very richly
carpeted, and full of gorgeous armchairs, and was there
for more than a week. Every time we passed we tried to
ascertain what it was there for, because the neighbours
seemed equally positive that it was there for the reception
of a pilgrim and that it was there for a wedding. Finally
we discovered that it was for both. There was an uncle who
was coming back from Mecca and a nephew who was going
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