rinkets from Stamboul; here are red and
yellow slippers of kid and satin, some elaborately wrought in silver and
gilt, and all turned up at the toes. The narrow way is crowded with
white and red turbans, women with fruit in baskets upon their heads,
strong and wiry Bedouins leading their horses and taking count of
everything with their sharp black eyes. They are the veritable sons of
the desert. Nile boatmen, Abyssinian slaves, and lazy Egyptians, with
Greeks, Italians, and Maltese, make up the jostling crowd of the bazars;
and amid all this one feels inquisitive as to where Aladdin's uncle may
be just now, with his new lamps to exchange for old ones.

Your local guide will suggest a short excursion to the Island of Roda,
and it is best to go there: if you do not, some one will tell you that
it was a great omission; that you will never know what you have missed,
and so forth! It is reached by a ferry-boat at a fee of a few pennies.
Here the gardener points out the identical spot where Moses was rescued
by the king's daughter! Here is to be seen the Nilometer, a square well
connected with the Nile, having in its centre an octagonal column on
which is inscribed Arabian measures. The flora of the island was
interesting, showing a large array of palms, oranges, lemons, bananas,
date, and fig-trees. Here also was pointed out to us the henna plant,
which we had not before seen, and from whence comes the dye with which
the Eastern women tint their fingers, nails, and the palms of their
hands. The plant is seen here in the form of a well-trimmed dwarf bush,
but it grows more like a tree in its natural state.

The street cries of Cairo are unique. At the early break of the day, or
rather at the moment of sunrise, the muezzin is heard: "To prayers, to
prayers, O ye believers!" Mustapha translated for us. Here was a seller
of peas, crying: "O parched peas. Nuts of love!" He was a rough fellow
but had a mellow voice. All those itinerants qualify, or recommend
their goods by added words; thus a girl, with cut up sugar-cane in a
basket upon her head, cried: "Sugar-canes; white sugar-canes," though
the article was black and blue. The water-carrier, with a full skin
slung over his shoulder, shouted: "God's gift, limpid water!" A long
bearded Copt cried: "O figs; O believers, figs!" and so on. When the
crowd is dense in the narrow streets lined by the bazars, the donkey-boy
shouts: "O woman, to the left!" or if some peddler of goods be