below. The pillars of stacked ware flanking the
fronts of pottery shops were in a constant state of wreckage and
reconstruction; the stalls of fruiterers perfumed the air with crushed
and over-ripe produce; litters with dark-eyed occupants and fan-bearing
attendants stood before the doorways of lapidaries and booths of
stuffs; venders of images, unguents, trinkets and wines strove to
outcry one another or the poulterer's squawking stall. Kenkenes met
frequent obstructions and was forced to reduce his rapid pace.
Curricles and chariots and wicker chairs halted him at many crossings.
Carriers took up much of the narrow streets with large burdens;
notaries and scribes sat cross-legged on the pavement, surrounded by
their patrons and clients, and beggars and fortune-tellers strove for
the young man's attention. The crowd thickened and thinned and grew
again; pigeons winnowed fearlessly down to the roadway dust, and a
distant yapping of dogs came down the slanting street. At times
Kenkenes encountered whole troops of sacred cats that wandered about
the city, monarchs over the monarch himself. By crowding into doorways
he allowed these pampered felines to pass undisturbed.

In the district near the lower edge of the city he met the heavy carts
of rustics, laden with cages of geese and crates of produce, moving
slowly in from the wide highways of the Memphian nome. The broad backs
of the oxen were gray with dust and their drivers were masked in grime.

The smell of the river became insistent. In the open stalls the
fishmongers had their naked brood keeping the flies away from the stock
with leafy branches. The limits of Memphis ended precipitately at a
sudden slope. In the long descent to the Nile there were few permanent
structures. Half-way down were great lengths of high platform built
upon acacia piling. This was the flood-tide wharf, but it was used now
only by loiterers, who lay upon it to bask dog-like in the sun. The
long intervening stretch between the builded city and the river was
covered with boats and river-men. Fishers mending nets were grouped
together, but they talked with one another as if each were a furlong
away from his fellow. Freight bearers, emptying the newly-arrived
vessels of cargo, staggered up toward the city. Now and again sledges
laden with ponderous burdens were drawn through the sand by yokes of
oxen, oftener by scores of men, on whom the drivers did not hesitate to
lay the lash.