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ROD-EL-FARAG
CHAPTER XXVIII
Rod^el'Farag and Shubra
is the grain port of Cairo, and Shubra
was until recently the garden suburb, in which pashas,
and other rich people, had palace-like villas surrounded
by gardens of deep tropical verdure. The very extensive-
ness of these gardens proved their downfall. It offered such
opportunities to the jerry-builder, and pashas were not a
class who let sentimental considerations weigh with them.
Nor indeed did many of them let business considerations
weigh with them sufficiently to secure the price of the
estates, with which they were parting, before the speculator
grubbed up their gardens and marked them out in allot-
ments. They were so ruthlessly dug up that if seeds were
supplied with sufficient lavishnes.s, quite wonderful agricultural
results might be produced.
To get to Rod-el- Farag and Shubra, you have to cross
a very steep bridge behind the railway station in the tram.
At first you pass some rather nice houses, but the road
soon hurries into chopped-up patches of building-land, from
which you take some time to escape if you are in the
Rod-el-Farag tram.
Rod-el-Farag is a place of no beauty. You only go
to it to see some interesting phases of native life, and to
be reminded of the infinitely more picturesque grain port
at Assuan. The buildings are low and mean, the side
walks and even the road, except that part over which tramways
fly at short intervals, are occupied by people who
have been grain-porters and are now asleep. As the
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