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Street Life in Cairo 53
dared to buy them you would be the possessor of an African's
fancy if not of his handiwork.
When the blue-gowned agriculturists from Thebes, who
claim to have dug up all their wares with their own hands,
while they were cultivating the soil of Der-el-Bahari
—
certainly the only kind of cultivating they were likely to
do was robbing tombs—when these Upper Egyptians, I say,
began to infest the pavement in front of the Continental,
this favourite promenade of the lounger of the Cairo season
no longer swarmed with Americans in expensive flannels
which offered no suggestion of participation in active sport
— and super-dressed Americanesses. Their couriers had told
them that it was time for all self-respecting tourists to be
out of Egypt. The pavement had quite a deserted appear-
ance, for though there were plenty of " the best English
people " in Cairo on their way back from the Equator and
the Bahr-el-Ghazal and other winter resorts which they
affect, they do not favour the promenade in front of the
Continental—they hardly ever pass it except when they are
on the way to Cook's, the universal banker of travellers in
Egypt.
To tourists who insist on the company of other tourists
Cairo grows dull as April grows old, but there are others
who rejoice to see the city return to its normal condition.
It is interesting for a little while to see this part of the city
looking as if it was arranged for the stage of the Gaiety.
Then if you are easily bored you get tired of the army of
performing parrots and the vulgarians for whom they cater,
and the noise and the bustle and the garishness and the
banality.
But I am not easily bored with the human comedy, and
I could go on being amused by the buffooneries of the
" Continental " pavement, just as I was never tired of watching
the poor playing at being back in the Middle Ages in the
Arab city.