orientalcairocit00sladuoft

4^ Oriental Cairo
dile on his head must by this time be convinced of its
unsaleabiHty. He exhorts you to buy it, but so soon
afterwards, without a real bargainer's delay—invites you to
take his photograph with it for a shilHng. His price for
being photographed comes down to a small piastre if you
are obdurate.
I have seen stuffed crocodiles offered often, and once at least
a live boa-constrictor put up in a glass-fronted box like honeycomb,
and a live leopard—not a very old one—in a cage.
Pigs in cages are comparatively common, and, as weight
presents no difficulty to the Egyptian educated as a porter,
men carry round all sorts of furniture for sale. 1 have
seen men with quite large tables and cabinets on their
backs patiently waiting for purchasers. I once saw a man
with a palm-tree fourteen feet high on his head. I photographed
him ; less adult trees and shrubs are common.
Strawberry sellers are insistent in February, in spite of
the fact that every foreigner knows or believes that their
Egyptian vendors moisten the strawberries in their mouths
whenever they look dusty. There are many sellers of dates
and figs, though dates are things which I should not like
to buy from an Egyptian in the street—he might have
bought damaged ones. It is the custom of the various
parasites to stand in rows in front of the terrace of the Con-
tinental, pushing their wares through the balustrade as ladies
poke their parasols into monkey-cages at the Zoo. The monkeys
in this cage are fairly safe from the attention of postcardsellers,
newspaper-boys and dragomans, and, without moving
from their exalted position, they may examine and buy Syrian
picture-frames, ostrich feathers, bead necklaces, fly-switches,
hippopotamus-hide sticks and whips, lace, braces, beans,
pastry, suspenders, tarbushes, air-balloons, birds in cages,
roses, narcissi, carnations, hyacinths, coat-stretchers, Indian
boxes, and, when they are on the market, leopards and boa-
constrictors. . . .
If you want to encounter the postcard- and paper-boys
you must go down into the street, first refusing the services
of two or three dozen dragomans who wish to take you