For glimpse of bright pink, scarlet, dancing like little flames in the sunlight held our gaze when we passed a merry band of maidens at their play, and later we saw their sinuous little figures go rushing past in a headlong procession, as, holding on to one another's skirts to represent the coupled waggons of a train, they dashed among the traffic on their journey. he completes (?) his costume with the crimson tarboosh, and orange - clad apparitions whose black silk tassel swings light-heartedly behind him. Behold him, thus accoutred cap-à-pie, go rushing madly on his way, passing within an inch of the foremost of a group of stately Bedouin, who, debouching from a side street, stand amazed and silent, wondering if such things can really be, or if it is a dream. their own costume and general appearance impel one to ask, "What news of Abraham the son of Terah?" and only this afternoon have they pitched their tents for the last time on their march from far Arabia, bringing Arab steeds to sell, if Allah wills, to the English subalterns of the garrison, for polo-ponies. In their country people do not rush about on wheels without carriages, and as to dress, le dernier cri is still a garment of camel's hair, with sandals. At every turn one meets in this amazing little village street similar anachronisms. Men and women representing to the life all the characters of the Old Testament since that unfortunate affair of the serpent, sauntering along among unpicturesque moderns of all nations, side by side with people straight straight from the ancient Egyptian wall-paintings, who differ hardly at all from their brethren in the British Museum. But the light of Egypt transforms and glorifies everything, and that of the British Museum affords but an insipid idea of the georgeous effect of it all. A Soon we left the main street, to follow a winding course along little, intricate, narrow alleys, that insinuated themselves among the mud - brick houses of the poorer citizens, and in due course came to a large double gate set in a high wall, gate once painted green by human art, and now faded into a harmony of soft colours by that of time. The attendant dismounted and undid the fastening (which was original, consisting of a pair of ancient handcuffs), and we rode into a large enclosure with a stable in the middle and a row of loose - boxes at one end. every available part of the open space, horses who could not afford expensive lodgings stood hobbled and tied to pegs driven into the ground. The place was, in fact, a horse's hotel, much patronised during the winter months by ladies and gentlemen in training for the Cairo Races. In We rode round the corner of the central building (which contains the most expensive suites and apartments), our donkeys stepping carefully between and over the ladies maids and valets, whose prostrate forms littered the ground. They were all fast asleep, according to their custom at that time of day, and some of them resembled nothing so much as a bundle of old rags, owing to the venerable and ancient coverlets they had selected. At the farther end of the yard a little, smiling, skewbald, mud-brick and plaster house, standing in modest isolation, dominates the scene. Beneath a broad-brimmed peakéd hatlike roof it sits and smiles, coyly pretending to hide its face behind a little green acacia that snuggles up against it. But the merry welcoming expression that is the most striking characteristic of the edifice is not to be hidden by any small acacia. I was drawn to the little house at once, as one is drawn sometimes to some friendly human countenance that one has never seen before. A glance at my companions' faces, on which shone the light which may be observed on the visage of some collector of rare gems as he contemplates his latest treasure, told me that we had reached our goal. Arrived at the little tree, we dismounted, delivering the donkeys to the care of the kindergarten, who promptly tied them all to the tree in a bunch. A rickety wooden staircase led from the tree to the first floor, or piano nobile. Up this stair we processed, to find ourselves on a balcony, looking in through a glass double-door upon the quaintest little abode. Four-square it was, "with an uneven stone floor, cool-looking whitewashed walls, and a very pleasing general air of quiet and retirement. The furniture consisted merely of the necessary artistic impedimenta and a chair or two. To right and left as we entered were windows whose venetian shutters were closed, one to keep out the sun, the other to prevent any one in the studio looking on the roof of a neighbour's house and catching an unlawful glimpse of the womenfolk. Facing us the sky appeared through a window in the upper part of a double door that seemed to be provided for the convenience of suicides, as it apparently led to nothing but infinity: so strongly did it give this impression that as one of my hostesses stepped forward to open it I involuntarily bounded to intercept her. At this moment both sides of the door flew and there burst upon open, my gaze an unexpected panorama of rarest loveliness. Beneath a limpid opalescent sky, with the long feathery clouds that herald the going down of the sun stealing across it to their appointed place, lay a great stretch of that marvellous emerald plain, receding in subtlest gradations to the hills, where the distant pink of the desert reminded one of the lonely vastnesses that lie beyond this thickly peopled valley of the Nile. A mud embankment made a ridge across the fields in the middle distance, and over it shone the white sails of laden barges, apparently proceeding through the solid fields, but as a matter of fact sailing on one of the canals that are the arteries of the land. To the left a field-path led from the village to a long, low, rambling line of pinkwashed farm-buildings, set in a grove of orange and lemon trees, with a bodyguard of old cypresses standing round about. Along this path a constant stream of varied life kept passing, like a pageant, to and fro. To the right some mounds of crumbling earth and an obelisk remain as monuments of ancient times, marking the site of a city that was old in Moses' day: the obelisk must have been a familiar object to him, when, if tradition speaks true, he attended the university near which it stood. The university is dust, but the obelisk is now much visited by Americans. The door had not opened on infinity after all, but on to another little rickety balcony below the level of the room, with a rudimentary parapet, on which at some personal risk one might lean and meditate. I stepped out and continued to drink in the beauties of the scene. Quite close below a clump of big trees stood protectingly over a wheezing, groaning water - wheel, whose music, to the accompaniment of splashing water and the clacking of wooden cogs, was being ground out by a slatecoloured buffalo with bandaged eyes, toiling painfully round in his appointed circle. Stopping for a moment to rest, the unfortunate beast was assailed by a hailstorm of epithets reflecting on his ancestry, shrilled at him by a vigorous VOL. CXCI.-NO. MCLVI. By this same water-wheel, I was told, would gather day by day the farmers and the neighbours and the idlers, the women and the children and the gossips, who, squatting comfortably in the shade by the pleasant sound of the water, would discuss with humour and zest the affairs of the family, the village, and the world. Quite audible to the girls at work by the open window was their talk, and scraps of conversation, revealing many an ancient superstition, many a curious custom, floated up to the little balcony from time to time. We stayed there, musing on this and that, until our reverie was interrupted by the rattle of teacups, and we turned to see the studio attendant within unpacking viands from a donkey's panniers. This person, whom the X's had discovered working in rags as under gardener, and had engaged at a modest wage per month to "do everything" for them, was as a studio-attendant quite unique. He was the son of a slave in the house of a Bedouin sheykh, who with his followers has overcome the fear of roofs falling in, and built a T village at some distance from the desert; and though his early years must have been passed under very different conditions, the X's told me that he took everything as a matter of course, and had picked up quite an appreciable knowledge of the processes of painting. In complexion a decided brunette, he was dressed in the artistic Bedouin fashion, with a long-sleeved kaftan and tassels flying round from various parts of his draperies. There was something almost uncanny about him as he squatted on the ground industriously cleaning a palette with the easy air of one born to the work. His operations were carried on with the utmost skill and neatness, and all the instruments in his charge were cleaned and polished so that it was a pleasure to handle them. For the moment, he was laying the table for tea with the carefulness of a well-trained parlourmaid, combined with a languid and dégagé manner all his own. When all was ready he retired down the stair with a few painting utensils, and looking into the stable-yard I watched him getting them into order for to-morrow's work. The names by which the various implements were called by him and his employers struck me as quaint: correct Arabic words for such things being non-existent, or at any rate unknown to either party, they took refuge in a descriptive code of their own, and had evolved such terms as "the leathery one" for india-rubber, "the wooden one," meaning a palette, "the carriage," a large studio easel, and "She who is neither oil nor benzoline," in mysterious allusion to an individual who was also sometimes referred to as "Bentina," and whom I afterwards discovered to be no less a personage than Turpentine herself. Now followed tea and talk, after the manner of studio teas and talks, only that by degrees we talked less and less, and looked out of the western window more and more, and finally ceased talking altogether, and found ourselves standing enthralled and silent on the balcony while the sunset unfolded itself. Each succeeding phase gave place to one that seemed yet finer than the last, until there came as a climax a glorious ruddy blaze that filled the sky and was reflected on the earth as though the world had taken fire. The next moment it was gone, leaving nothing but a dull red glow where the sun had dipped below the horizon, and this, too, quickly changed to sombre purple, and then to deep, cold blue, and it was night. "Light the lantern," commanded the spinster-in-chief, "we must be getting home." Preceded by the assistant bearing a candle in a glass cage, we descended the stairs without loss of limb or life, and addressed ourselves to the task of unravelling the now tangled mass of tree, donkeys, and donkey-boys, much hampered by the well-meant efforts of the last. By this time it was quite dark, and the single candle served but to make it seem more intensely so, increasing the diffi culty of the disentangling some inner inner hiding-place a operation twenty-fold. Just were considering the plan of cutting down the tree and riding off together with it as the only means of getting away from the place, came a sudden brightness in the sky to the east, over the dark heads of the acacias and behind the dome of the mosque. Brighter it grew and swiftly yellower, until with startling suddenness there shot up into the sky the buxom cheery face of the full moon, and all was light. "Allah's lantern is the best," remarked the assistant languidly, as he blew out the candle. Engrossed in the attempt to extricate my donkey from the mass, I had not noticed the approach of footsteps till the sound of a horse-shoe striking on something hard rang out and caused me to look up. Then I saw riding into the yard three people who were either Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, or their doubles. The first was on 8 little white arab, the other two on darker horses. They came towards us, and when they saw the X's, threw themselves off their horses and came forward to greet them. They were all wearing the crown-like headdress of Arabia, with stately cloaks of various colours thrown loosely round them. "Good evening, O my uncle!" said one of the girls to the foremost. "How ran the horse to - day?" "Well, by the Prophet," he replied, groping among the many the many superimposed layers of his draperies, and finally extracting from large silver stop watch, "I will show you." Pressing the spring he started the secondhand, while we gathered round to watch the progress of the horse; after two rounds and some ten seconds had been traversed by the hand he pressed the spring again, and looked up in triumph at this proof of his horse's speed. "Mashallah!" we all exclaimed, praised!" "the Lord be A long conversation followed on the subject of horses (for Gaspar is a sportsman, and the X's, when not painting, spend most of their time in the saddle); the other kings kept more in the background, being somewhat shy and less accustomed to the English than their leader, who is the landlord of the stable, and incidentally of the studio also. The attendant had by this time combed out the tangle at the tree, and came dreamily forward with the donkeys. I took the hint, and reluctantly prepared to leave this pleasant place for the heat and bustle of Cairo. The X's, I reflected, with their cool and airy country-house in the neighbourhood to retire to, had chosen the better part. Escorted for some distance by the Arabs, we parted from them at last, pursued by many courteous speeches and pious wishes for our welfare. These they continued to reel off as long as we were within earshot, until at last their distant voices died away in the final salutation, "Go in peace!" NINA BAIRD. |