orientalcairocit00sladuoft

40 Oriental Cairo
features and expression of the sun on Old Moore's almanack
—that is to say, with hardly any expression, or the expression
of an unconsidered female drudge. The country women,
on the other hand, cspeciall)' where they have a strong
admixture of bedaivin blood, are often charmingly pretty,
and seldom wear the face-veil, though they sometimes draw
their head-veil closer if you want to photograph them, till
they understand that they will get a penny for being im-
mortalised by the camera. The children of the city are
made hideous by their parents' pride in adorning them with
European slops. I daresay they would be quite pretty if
they walked about in blue cotton nightgowns like their
fathers.
At Cairo one often sighs for the mediaeval grace and
colour imparted to Tunis by her rich Arabs wearing their
native dress, made with the costliest materials, the most
delicate colours, and the most elegant draperies. The rich
Tunisian, when it is warm enough, dresses like a courtier
of the Alhambra. The Cairo effendi wears English clothes
made by Greeks, kept in countenance by a tarbiisJi if he is
particular about showing that he is not an infidel.
But to return to the mediaeval poor of Cairo. The water-
seller stands in the van. Sometimes he is resplendent in the
old national dress and carrying brass cups, that shine like
beaten gold, made in the shape of sacramental chalices,
into which he drops aniseed from the curled and tapering
spout of a shining brazen urn. But usually, in the fine old
crusted parts of the city, he looks like a dirty beggar. His
body is in rags, his legs arc nearly black and nearly bare
(which last is not surprising, as he walks right into the Nile
to get his water), and he carries his water in a black skin
slung round his body or a huge earthenware pitcher in a
net upon his back. He sells his water in a cheap black
earthenware saucer. He is the type of charity, for, though
he is desperately poor, he often gives his water away to
those who cannot afford to pay. He is wonderfully adroit
at pouring his water out with a bend of his back :
the clear,
cool spurt leaps over his shoulder into the saucer without