on an aged head. Very, very tall were these houses. They all appeared
horribly, almost indecently, old. As I stood and stared at them, I
remembered a story of a Russian friend of mine, a landed proprietor,
on whose country estate dwelt a peasant woman who lived to be over a
hundred. Each year when he came from Petersburg, this old woman arrived
to salute him. At last she was a hundred and four, and, when he left his
estate for the winter, she bade him good-bye for ever. For ever! But,
lo! the next year there she still was--one hundred and five years old,
deeply ashamed and full of apologies for being still alive. "I cannot
help it," she said. "I ought no longer to be here, but it seems I do not
know anything. I do not know even how to die!" The grey, tall houses
of Old Cairo do not know how to die. So there they stand, showing their
haggard facades, which are broken by protruding, worm-eaten, wooden
lattices not unlike the shaggy, protuberant eyebrows which sometimes
sprout above bleared eyes that have seen too much. No one looked out
from these lattices. Was there, could there be, any life behind them?
Did they conceal harems of centenarian women with wrinkled faces,
and corrugated necks and hands? Here and there drooped down a string
terminating in a lamp covered with minute dust, that wavered in the
wintry wind which stole tremulously between the houses. And the houses
seemed to be leaning forward, as if they were fain to touch each other
and leave no place for the wind, as if they would blot out the exiguous
alleys so that no life should ever venture to stir through them again.
Did the eyes of the Virgin Mary, did the baby eyes of the Christ Child,
ever gaze upon these buildings? One could almost believe it. One could
almost believe that already these buildings were there when, fleeing
from the wrath of Herod, Mother and Child sought the shelter of the
crypt of Abu Sargah.

I went on, walking with precaution, and presently I saw a man. He was
sitting collapsed beneath an archway, and he looked older than
the world. He was clad in what seemed like a sort of cataract of
multi-colored rags. An enormous white beard flowed down over his
shrunken breast. His face was a mass of yellow wrinkles. His eyes were
closed. His yellow fingers were twined about a wooden staff. Above his
head was drawn a patched hood. Was he alive or dead? I could not tell,
and I passed him on tiptoe. And going always with precaution between the
tal