ce, frequented by the captains of merchant-vessels, who, not being
hot enough already, raised the temperature of their blood by drinking
brandy-and-water, arrack, and other combustibles, in a dark, oven-like
room below stairs.

We took possession of all the rooms upstairs, of which the principal one
was long and narrow, with two windows at the end, opening on to a
covered balcony or verandah: this overlooked the principal street and
the bazaar. Here my companion and I soon stationed ourselves and watched
the novel and curious scene below; and strange indeed to the eye of an
European, when for the first time he enters an Oriental city, is all he
sees around him. The picturesque dresses, the buildings, the palm-trees,
the camels, the people of various nations, with their long beards, their
arms, and turbans, all unite to form a picture which is indelibly fixed
in the memory. Things which have since become perfectly familiar to us
were then utterly incomprehensible, and we had no one to explain them to
us, for the one waiter of the poor inn, who was darting about in his
shirt-sleeves after the manner of all waiters, never extended his
answers to our questions beyond "Si, Signore," so we got but little
information from him; however, we did not make use of our eyes the less
for that.

[Illustration: NEGRESS WAITING TO BE SOLD IN THE SLAVE BAZAAR, CAIRO]

Among the first things we noticed, was the number of half-naked men who
went running about, each with something like a dead pig under his arm,
shouting out "Mother! mother!"[1] with a doleful voice. These were the
sakis or water-carriers, with their goat-skins of the precious element,
a bright brass cupful of which they sell for a small coin to the thirsty
passengers. An old man with a fan in his hand made of a palm-branch, who
was crumpled up in the corner of a sort of booth among a heap of dried
figs, raisins, and dates, just opposite our window, was an object of
much speculation to us how he got in, and how he would ever manage to
get out of the niche into which he was so closely wedged. He was the
merchant, as the Arabian Nights would call him, or the shopkeeper as we
should say, who sat there cross-legged among his wares waiting patiently
for a customer, and keeping off the flies in the meanwhile, as in due
time we discovered that all merchants did in all countries of the East.
Soon there came slowly by, a long procession of men on horseback with
golden bridles and ve