Cities Of The Dawn Part 5

In 1890 he came up to Jerusalem, and at last I met him. The first time that I called upon him I was in company with my father, my uncle the judge, the son of the Chief Rabbi, and another Rabbi, one of the judges of the Jewish Court.

'The Chief Rabbi appoints twelve judges, who each serve a term of three months every year, and every dispute between Jews must first be brought before them, and, if needs be, is referred by them to the Turkish Court.'

In time the writer became a Christian and was baptized. He adds:

'It was my desire to get the training that would make me a good Christian teacher, but I could not travel without a pa.s.sport, and could not get this except through the application of my father, who, instead, gave strict orders that no pa.s.sport should be made for me.

After a year of vain endeavour, I was able to persuade a friend who was in the office where they are written, on the score of friends.h.i.+p, to give me a _tishcara_, or local pa.s.sport, which, however, he did not dare to record; off in the country it served me well. My plan was to start on a trip through the country and seize any opportunity that might offer of getting to Egypt. I started from the Damascus Gate, my faithful horse being my only companion. We travelled first to Nablous, the ancient Sichem, and finding that the Samaritans were soon to keep their pa.s.sover, I waited to see their celebrated sacrifice. Each family took a lamb, and they went out and pitched their tents on Mount Gerizim before the tomb of Sichem, the son of Hamor, whom they hold in great reverence, and camped out there for eight days. On the first day their high-priest sacrificed a lamb for each family, and every day he himself mixed the unleavened cakes.

Leaving Nablous, I struck across country till I came to an Arab village on the Jordan, and then followed its course until I came to Tiberias. Along this part of the country many of the villagers knew me, and wherever I was acquainted they entertained me freely with their proverbial hospitality. At one Bedouin encampment they insisted on roasting an entire sheep. This they did in a very primitive fas.h.i.+on. They dug a ditch in the earth, and made fire within it until it was very hot, and then, removing the fire, they laid the lamb, well seasoned, on the hot ashes, and then buried it for a couple of hours. It then made a very savoury dish, of which we all partook, dipping into the same dish.

'Tiberias is one of the four sacred cities of the Jews, and there I found a large number residing. It is also a favourite resort because of its hot springs of healing qualities. I had left Jerusalem almost ill, and so was very glad to take a course of baths here.

'From Tiberias I journeyed towards Nazareth, and visited the Tomb of Jethro, near the horns of Ha.s.sau, where probably our Lord preached His wondrous Sermon on the Mount. At Nazareth I was hospitably entertained at the Latin Convent, and a priest showed me all the sights of the town. Next day 400 or 500 French pilgrims arrived, and I shared their entertainment.

'After three days I resumed my journey, with the intention of embarking at Haifa and pa.s.sing on to Egypt without being seen at Jaffa.'

And in due time the writer made his escape, and was welcomed in America, mainly owing to the a.s.sistance of Mr. Ben Oliel, who had been the means of his conversion.

CHAPTER XIII.

ALEXANDRIA.

We left Jaffa on the Monday, and in twenty-four hours after were landed at Alexandria. Alexandria is not a desirable place to land at; travellers have to trust generally to native boatmen, who are a race of robbers. For instance, an American gentleman described to me how it fared with him on attempting to land a few years since. He and a friend made a bargain with a respectable man to put them ash.o.r.e. He called a boatman, into whose boat they got with their luggage. No sooner had the man rowed a little way from the s.h.i.+p than he stopped and demanded the instant payment of a sum four times the amount that had been agreed upon.

The travellers said they had made an agreement with his master, and he was bound to carry it out. He replied that he had no master; that the boat was his, that the oars were his, and that he would neither take them back to the s.h.i.+p nor row them ash.o.r.e unless they complied with his request. One of the gentlemen had a revolver, which he held at the rascal's head, telling him to prepare for instant death. The man sullenly obeyed, but no sooner had he reached the sh.o.r.e than he landed and preferred against the travellers a charge of attempting to murder him. The affair promised to be serious, but it was discovered by the judge that the revolver was not loaded, nor ever had been loaded, and the travellers were at length allowed to depart in peace. I heard of another case of a Frenchman shooting his boatman, who refused to fulfil his contract. In my case, happily, I landed on the quay, and had no trouble with the boatmen at all.

At length I am fairly landed in the land of the Pharaohs-a land whose records are engraved in stones, and date thousands of years before the birth of Christ. You see nothing of Alexandria till you approach it, and then it spreads out before you in all its charm, from Pharos, the most ancient lighthouse in the world, on one side, to Pompey's Pillar on the other. Soon after I land at the quay, I make my way to the railway-station in a carriage and pair, for which I had agreed to pay a s.h.i.+lling. At the station the driver has the impudence to demand two s.h.i.+llings, which I refuse to give, whilst a dragoman, who has fastened himself on to me, though I have attempted to get rid of him, demands a s.h.i.+lling for his unnecessary attendance. I offer him threepence; he is indignant. 'I am a dragoman,' he exclaims in an angry tone. 'What do you take me for?' At length I give him sixpence, and he goes away in peace. I smoke my first pipe of excellent Egyptian tobacco, swallow a tiny cup of coffee, all sugar and grounds, and survey the scene from the outside of the excellent railway-station, which is a credit to the city.

Every minute a blacking boy begs me to let him clean my boots, but as I need not his services they are declined. On my way I have seen every sign of industry and wealth: s.p.a.cious shops, and a fine square adorned with handsome houses, and with a good statue of Ibrahim Pasha-the man to whom modern Egypt owes its first dawn of revived prosperity. The munic.i.p.al authorities of the place have [Picture: Pompey's Pillar, Alexandria] done much to promote its prosperity. The traveller will find it to his advantage to stop here a day or two. The hotels are excellent, and, with one exception, by no means dear. The harbour is full of s.h.i.+pping and steamers, and the number of trains laden with merchandise running between Cairo and Alexandria seems incessant. The railway-carriages are an immense improvement on those which take you from Jaffa to Jerusalem. Alexandria has a population of over 300,000, and its prosperity has greatly increased of late. The English reside princ.i.p.ally at Ramleh, five miles off, to which there is a local train service. On your way you pa.s.s the battlefield between the English and the French, where our General, Sir Ralph Abercrombie, lost his life in the hour of victory.

Commerce seems to have had her birthplace in Egypt. In the time of Joseph, we read, all countries came there to buy corn. Fifteen hundred years before the birth of Christ its merchants brought indigo and muslins from India, and porcelain from China, and the fame of its mariners was great. The trade route was down the Persian Gulf, along the Tigris, through Palmyra-the Tadmor of old-down to the cities of the Mediterranean. Arab mariners also sailed from India, keeping close to the coast till they reached Berenice, in the Red Sea, whence the goods were transported to Captos, thence down the Nile to Alexandria. 'Under such Emperors as the cruel and dissipated Commodus,' writes Mr. R. W.

Fraser, in his 'British India,' 'the plundering barbarian, Caracalla, and the infamous Heliogabalus, the wealth that came from the East through Alexandria to the imperial city of Rome, pa.s.sed away to Constantinople and the rising cities along the Mediterranean.'

The glory of Alexandria in the olden time was the Serapeum, sacred to the wors.h.i.+p of Serapis, a G.o.d originally wors.h.i.+pped in Sinope, and brought to Alexandria by the Emperor Ptolemy-wors.h.i.+pped eventually by the Romans as the Supreme Being, the beneficent Lord of Life and Death. It is clear the Ptolemies-at one and the same time Egyptian Pharaohs and Greek princes-felt the need of a real and presiding deity for the great city, with its enormous population, not only from Greece and its colonies, but from all the nations and tribes of the Mediterranean and the East.

As the seat of a G.o.d-wors.h.i.+p became important, so did the deity its patron. When Alexandria became the official and mercantile capital of Egypt, Serapis became the chief of all the G.o.ds of the land, and there his shrine was wors.h.i.+pped for nearly one thousand years. The wors.h.i.+p of Serapis was the last to fall before the advancing force of Christianity.

The philosopher saw in Serapis, writes Macrobius, nothing more than the _anima mundi_, the spirit of whom universal nature is the body; so that by an easy transition Serapis came to be wors.h.i.+pped as the embodiment of the one Supreme whose representative on earth was Christ. This is clear from a letter written by the Emperor Hadrian A.D. 131. 'I am now become,' writes Hadrian, 'fully acquainted with that Egypt which you extol so highly. I have found the people vain, fickle, and s.h.i.+fting with every change of opinion. Those who wors.h.i.+p Serapis are, in fact, Christians; even those who style themselves the bishops of Christ are actually devoted to Serapis. There is no chief of a Jewish synagogue, no Samaritan, no Christian bishop, who is not an astrologer, a fortune-teller, or a conjurer. The very Patriarch of Tiberias is compelled, when he comes to Egypt, by one party to adore Serapis, by another to wors.h.i.+p Christ.'

And this seems to show that some Christians, in order to escape persecution, enjoyed their own faith under the cover of the national and local wors.h.i.+p, which was susceptible of a spiritual interpretation quite cognate to their own ideas. A similar case occurred in Spain, as the historical reader may remember, when so many Jews, in fear of the Inquisition, nominally became Roman Catholics. Accordingly, it is clear that the tone of the higher, the fas.h.i.+onable society in Alexandria was to believe that on some grander or philosophic theory all these religions differed in form, but were essentially the same; that all adored one Logos or Demiurge under different names, all employed the same arts to impose on the vulgar, and all were equally despicable to the real philosopher.

The wors.h.i.+p of Serapis was abolished in the reign of Justinian, and of the former glory of the Serapeum nothing now remains, unless it be Pompey's Pillar, which was said by some to have formed part of the Serapeum. According to Tacitus, sick persons were accustomed to pa.s.s a night in the Serapeum in order to regain their health. The colossal statue of Serapis was involved in the ruin of his temple and religion.

It was believed that if an insult were offered to that statue, chaos would ensue. When a Christian soldier aimed his first blow, even the Christians trembled for the event. The victorious soldier, Gibbon tells us, repeated his blows; the huge idol was overthrown and broken in pieces, and the limbs of Serapis were ignominiously dragged through the streets of Alexandria. His mangled carcase was burnt in the amphitheatre amidst the shouts of the people, and many persons attributed their conversion to this discovery of the impotence of their great deity. A process something similar, attended with similar results, has more than once occurred in the history of missionary enterprise.

Deeply interesting is Alexandria from a historical point of view. It was founded by Alexander the Great more than 300 years before Christ. King Ptolemy, the first of that name, made it the capital of his kingdom, laid the foundations of its enormous library, and held out inducements to men of learning to come from all parts of the world to settle there. During the siege of the city by the Romans the library was burnt, but Antony afterwards gave the library a large collection of ma.n.u.scripts, which formed the nucleus of a second library. In the early centuries of our era the town was torn with religious dissensions about the Jews and religious dogma. It was here the beautiful Hypatia, the fair heroine of Kingsley's celebrated novel, was torn to pieces by an infuriated mob.

St. Mark is said to have preached the Gospel here. It was here that there arose fierce discussions between Arius and Athanasius and Cyril.

The Christians were persecuted with great severity by Decius, by Valeria.n.u.s, and Diocletian. The city then declined in wealth and importance. Its population dwindled away. All fanatics, Christian or pagan, seem to me equally to blame.

It was at one time, as I have said, the headquarters of the wors.h.i.+p of Serapis. The temple stood to the east of Alexandria, near Pompey's Pillar. It is said to have been one of the most remarkable buildings in the world, and was filled with excellent statues and other works of art.

It was destroyed by the Christian fanatic, Theophilus, during the reign of Theodosius II. Gibbon describes the prelate as 'a bold, bad man, the perpetual enemy of peace and virtue, whose hands were alternately polluted with gold and blood.' The library of the Serapeum is said to have contained about 400,000 ma.n.u.scripts; at any rate, when it was burnt by the command of the Khalif Omar, the ma.n.u.scripts were said to have been sufficiently numerous to heat the public baths for six months. Perhaps it is as well they were not all preserved. Of making many books there is no end, and many are the books published in this intelligent age, the burning of which would be no loss, but a gain, to the reading public.

Among the famous men who studied in the original library of Alexandria were Strabo, Hipparchus, Archimedes, Plato, and Euclid.

Then came the blighting rule of the Turk, and the wise men moved away.

They are all vanished-gone; in their place have come the Jew banker, the tradesman, and the merchant prince. The people amuse me. They wear the cotton tunic longer, and have a more Arabian cast of feature than the Jews. I see a funeral, with a long line of women following. I see a Turk at his devotions. He spreads a small carpet before him, then raises his arms above his head, muttering something all the while; then he bows his body so that the head touches the ground, and so he goes on.

In a little while we are off for Cairo, or Caire, as they call it here.

On my way I get my first glimpse of one of the branches of the Nile, one of the largest, and certainly the most renowned, rivers in the world. In a few days I see more of the Nile, the overflow of which has not yet been dried up, and watch the people in the mud, far too soft to admit of ploughing, hoeing the land, rich and dark, and casting in the seed which is soon to bear an abundant harvest. On our way to Cairo we pa.s.s a fertile country, and see crops of sugarcane and rice and maize growing, and the blue-clad fellaheen at work. We pa.s.s several big towns, which seem thickly populated and full of life. The houses are everywhere the same-white, with flat roofs.

As originally founded, Alexandria was only equalled by Rome itself. It comprehended a circ.u.mference of fifteen miles, and was peopled by 300,000 free inhabitants, besides at least an equal number of slaves. The lucrative trade of Arabia and India flowed through its port to Rome and the provinces. No one lived an idle life. There was plenty of work for all, chiefly in gla.s.s-blowing, weaving of linen, and the manufacture of papyrus. The people, a mixture of all nations under the sun, were difficult to rule, and always ready for sedition. A transient scarcity of flesh or lentils, the neglect of a public salutation, a mistake of precedency in the public baths, or a religious dispute, such as the sacrilegious murder of a divine cat, was quite sufficient to create a b.l.o.o.d.y tumult.

Origen was a native of Alexandria. It was there, after his time, that the endless controversy as to the nature of the Three Persons in the Trinity originated-a controversy which lasted for centuries, which led to wars and ma.s.sacres, and which finally separated the Churches of Greece and Rome. The Jews, who had settled in Alexandria by the invitation of the Ptolemies, carried the teaching of Plato into their religious speculations. In time Arius arose to proclaim his idea of the Logos, and Athanasius to oppose and protest, and ultimately triumph. The h.o.m.oousians prevailed, and the h.o.m.oiousians were branded and persecuted as heretics-enemies alike to G.o.d and man; yet Athanasius was driven from his diocese, and the famous St. George of Cappadocia reigned in his stead. The pagans of Alexandria, who still formed a numerous and discontented party, were easily persuaded to desert a Bishop whom they feared and esteemed. At a later time Cyril became the Archbishop, and distinguished his orthodox career by the animosity with which he expelled the Jews, and opposed the doctrine of Nestorius, who taught that there was a Divine and human Christ, and refused to wors.h.i.+p the Virgin Mary as the mother of G.o.d.

'He was a most expert logician,' writes Zosimus, 'but perverted his talents to evil powers, and had the audacity to preach what no one before him had ever suggested, namely, that the Son of G.o.d was made out of that which had no prior existence; that there was a period of time in which He existed not; that as possessing free will, He was capable of vice; and that He was created, not made.' At the Council of Nicaea, held in the reign of Constantine, it was decided that Christ and the Father were of one and the same nature, and the doctrine of Arius, that Christ and G.o.d were only similar in nature, was declared heretical. Nevertheless, the Arians became more numerous than ever under the reign of Valens. As soon as the Christians of the West, writes Gibbon, had extricated themselves from the snares of the creed of Rimini, they happily relapsed into the slumber of orthodoxy, and the small remains of the Arian party that still subsisted in Sirmium or Milan might be considered as objects of contempt rather than resentment. But in the provinces of the East, from the Euxine to the extremity of Thebais, the strength and number of the hostile factions were equally balanced, and this equality, instead of recommending the counsels of peace, served only to perpetuate the horrors of religious war. The monks and bishops supported their arguments by invectives, and their invectives were sometimes followed by blows.

Athanasius still reigned at Alexandria, but the thrones of Constantinople and Antioch were occupied by Arian prelates, and every episcopal vacancy was the occasion of a popular tumult. The h.o.m.oousians were fortified by the reconciliation of fifty-nine Macedonian or semi-Arian bishops, but their secret reluctance to embrace the Divinity of the Holy Ghost clouded the splendour of their triumph, and the declaration of Valens, who in the first years of his reign had imitated the impartial conduct of his brother, was an important victory on the side of Arianism. Well might Dr. Arnold write that it was an evil hour for the Church when Constantine connected Christianity with the State. It is really wonderful that real Christianity survived that fatal step when the sword of the civil magistrate was drawn in its support. It is hardly yet recognised that the religion of Jesus of Nazareth flourishes best when free from State patronage and control.

CHAPTER XIV.

IN CAIRO.

Covered with dust, parched with thirst, exhausted with hunger, burnt up with heat, I am landed at the charming Hotel du Nil, in the gardens of which, filled up with American rocking-chairs, and trees bearing gorgeous red flowers and bananas and palms, and eucalyptus and banyan-trees all around, I realize as I have never done before something of the splendour and the wondrous beauty of the East. It must have been a fairy palace at one time or other, this Hotel du Nil, with an enchanted garden. In the day it is intolerably hot, but the mornings and evenings are simply perfection. If there be an Elysium on earth, it is this. I feel inclined to pitch my tent here, and for ever bid adieu to my native land.

The dinners are all that can be desired, the bedrooms large and lofty, and the servants, who, with the exception of the German waiters, are Soudanese-tall, white-robed, with a girdle round the middle-seem to me to be the best and most attentive in the world. There is nothing they will not do for me, and they are honest as the day. Apparently the dark boys have a good deal of the negro in their blood. I walk out to see the fine buildings and palaces which lie between me and the railway-station, but I cannot stand the bustle and confusion of the street, and soon beat a hasty retreat. The infirmities of old age follow me into this land of perpetual youth.

[Picture: General view of Cairo]

I walk outside the narrow and sombre lane which leads to the hotel in the quaint and ancient street Mousky. Let me attempt to describe it, and it will give the reader an accurate idea of Oriental life. The Mousky is the busiest street in all Cairo. Here meet Greek and Syrian, Anglo-Saxons, American or English, Armenian and Turk, Maronite and Druse, Italians, French, Russians, German, Dutch, and Belgian, and the vast army of residents, men, women, and children, of all shades and complexions, from the ebony-black Soudanese to the olive-tinted Arab, walk its length, penetrate its dark and confusing bazaars, and there [Picture: A street in Cairo] is nothing more for you to see. Donkey drivers, who beset me at every step, and the guides on the look-out for their prey, are a perpetual nuisance, even though they a.s.sure me they like the English and are glad to see them here.

Crowded together are nooks and corners where native merchants ply their trades, and the gloom of some dark recess is lit by the glowing blue and scarlet and purple of Persian rugs, and the glare of polished and embossed bra.s.s. In the street the modern descendant of Tubal Cain is hard at work, and the tailor plies his needle, and the cigarette-maker rolls up his tobacco in its thin wrapper of paper, and the weaver bends over his loom, differing in nothing from that used by his forefathers a thousand years ago. Eatables and drinkables of strange flavour and colour are exposed for sale, and pedlars meet you at every turn uttering hoa.r.s.e and discordant cries. There is quite a buzz of conversation, but I cannot understand a word. Why, I ask, did not Leibnitz carry out his grand idea and give us a universal language? It would have saved some of us a good deal of trouble. The pavement is too narrow for anyone to walk on, as the shopkeeper sits outside smoking his cigarette, while the customers also do the same, and the street is completely blocked. You are obliged to get into the narrow way where carriages and donkey and luggage waggons meet you at every step.

Women abound, all clad in black, with a black cloth over their faces, leaving only the eyes and nose visible, and a cheek of pallid skin. The nose is covered with a little gilt ornament, I suppose they call it, coming from the forehead, so that you really see nothing of it. Now and then you pa.s.s a coffee-house where smoking and gambling seem to be going on all day. In the course of my ramblings I came to a street lined with scribes on stones writing letters for their clients, and was struck with the firm, clear hand in which their letters are written-all in Arabic, of course. Every now and then a swell pa.s.ses me in his carriage, with a running footman to clear the way with a white or black staff. I expect to be knocked down every minute. To walk the Mousky in peace and safety, you require to be as deaf as a post and to have a pair at least of good eyes at the back of your head.

[Picture: Tomb of the Caliphs of Cairo]

Wearied, I return to the quiet and shady groves of the hotel, a large pile of buildings streaked red and yellow, with a grand bit of garden ground at the back, and a wooden tower, from which you may see all Cairo at a glance. All the houses are flat-roofed, and many of them look unfinished, though not in reality so. I sink into a rocking-chair, light my pipe, and talk of the future of Cairo. I say I want to visit a Coptic Church, the church which was held heretical by the Orthodox Church, as they were said to have held imperfect ideas of the dual nature of Christ.

One gentleman tells me I had better keep away, as the priests will pick your pockets in the very church. He has 300 Copts in his employ, and gives them all a very bad character. I ask as to the Khedive; everyone gives him a bad character, though he has discovered one wife is enough for any man. 'He has the bad blood of his father and grandfather,' says an Englishman to me. He has a thin veneer of civilization, but he is weak and ignorant, eaten up with ambition, and over head and ears in debt, though his allowance is 100,000 a year, a sum which should go far in a city where the price of labour is from two piastres to five, the piastre being valued at twopence halfpenny.

The people live exclusively on maize-corn, certainly not an expensive article of diet. The intelligent people are all in favour of the English Government, but, alas! the majority does not in Cairo, as I am told it does at home, represent the enlightened opinions of an intelligent people. I hear the s.h.i.+lly-shally policy of the English Government bitterly condemned. We are here, and must remain here. As it is, the people know not what to expect. There is no progress, but a terrible paralysis all over the city. 'I like you English,' said an intelligent native; 'but you are here to-day and may be gone to-morrow, and then we who have adhered to England will all have our throats cut. We are like a boat between two sh.o.r.es, and know not whither we are going. The English must either stop or go.' Our stay is to the lasting advantage of all the European nations.

We have wonderfully improved the condition of the fellaheen, who, according to all I hear, are not too thankful for the liberty we have gained for them. I met an intelligent old Greek, who deeply resented that we had abolished flogging-a little of it now and then, according to him, did the natives good. Manual labour is so cheap that it is used in every department. At the hotel I note that they bring the coals in in baskets, and in the railway-station I see a native employed in laying the dust, with a skin of water, which he carries on his back, using the neck as a water-spout.

Of all the cities I have known-and, like Ulysses, I am ever wandering with a hungry heart-I infinitely prefer Cairo, and am not surprised that it is becoming more and more the winter residence of the English aristocracy. It was a delight to live when I was there, and as I took my breakfast _al fresco_ in the beautiful grounds of the Hotel du Nil, with tropical plants in full flower all round me, a bright sun and unclouded blue sky above, the question whether life was worth living seemed to me an absurdity. But, alas! no one can look for perfect happiness-at any rate, on earth. In Cairo there are the flies, not so bad as I have seen them in Australia or America, but a terrible infliction nevertheless.

One of my companions, Mr. Willans, the popular proprietor of the _Leeds Daily Mercury_, suffered much from them, and had for a time to give up reading and writing, and to wear coloured gla.s.ses, but I was let off more easily. In Cairo, for the first time, I realized what a luxury it was to have dates to eat. We at home, who buy dates at the grocer's, have no idea how juicy the date of Cairo is. [Picture: Donkey Boy, Cairo] Then the heat is great, and walking far is out of the question. But what of that? Directly you turn into the street the donkey-boy comes up to offer you a ride; and the Cairo donkey is lively, large, and white, and well groomed, sure of foot, swift in speed, and beautiful to look at. An English coster's moke is not to be named on the same day with the Cairo donkey, on which you can have a ride for a trifling sum.

Life and prosperity seem everywhere to prevail, and the station at Cairo conducts you at once into a fine city, with broad streets, well watered, and shaded by trees, handsome shops, fine hotels, beautiful gardens, and the inevitable statue of Mohammed Ali, who did so much to develop modern Egypt. Palaces of all kinds attract the eye, one of the finest of these being the residence of Lord Cromer. Cairo is distinctly a society place, though, perhaps, not so much so as Cannes or Nice, and living is dear, though cheaper than it used to be. French seems the language princ.i.p.ally used, though the guides, who pester you at every corner, and the donkey-boys, who are equally persistent, have a confusing smattering of English. The resident English colony is chiefly composed of the diplomatic and Consular bodies, or of those connected with the different Consular departments, and of officers of the garrison. You meet many English soldiers whose appearance is creditable to the country, and amongst the birds of pa.s.sage are many Americans. There are two good clubs for visitors-the Khediveal and the Turf, the latter chiefly supported by army officers. The theatre, where French plays and Italian operas are performed, is a very fine building. In the same neighbourhood is also a _cafe chantant_ in the gardens. All day long, under the bright blue sky, the scene is very animated.

But the visitors, although a welcome addition, do not entirely make up Cairene society. The gaiety begins and is mainly kept up by the residents, especially the British civil and military, who are always most hospitable at the winter time of year. Cairo is no doubt a court and capital, the residence of the sovereign to whom diplomatists are accredited from all the civilized Powers. But it is also a British military station, and it owes much of its present liveliness to the British officers and civil servants.