in which the feet are used. In Cairo one soon becomes as
familiar with feet as one is elsewhere with hands; it is not merely that
they are bare; it is that the toes appear to be prehensile, like
fingers. In the bazaars the embroiderers hold their cloth with their
toes; the slipper-makers, the flag-cutters, the brass-workers, the
goldsmiths, employ their second set of fingers almost as much as they
employ the first. Both the hands and feet of these men are well formed,
slender, and delicate, and, by the rules of their religion, they are
bathed five times each day.

Mosques are near where they can get water for this duty. For the bazaars
are not continuous rows of shops: one comes not infrequently upon the
ornamental portal of an old Arabian dwelling-house, upon the forgotten
tomb of a sheykh, with its low dome; one passes under stone arches;
often one sees the doorway of a mosque. Humble-minded dogs, who look
like jackals, prowl about. The populace trudges through the narrow
lanes, munching sugar-cane whenever it can get it. Another favorite food
is the lettuce-plant; but the leaves, which we use for salad, the
Egyptians throw away; it is the stalk that attracts them.

Lettuce-stalks are not rich food, but the bazaars of the people who eat
them convey, on the whole, an impression of richness; this is owing to
the sumptuousness of the prayer carpets, the gold embroideries, the
gleaming silks, the Oriental brass-work with sentences from the Koran,
the ivory, the ostrich plumes, the little silver bottles for kohl, the
inlaid daggers, the turquoises and pearls, and the beautiful gauzes, a
few of them embroidered with the motto, "I do this work for you," and on
the reverse side, "And this I do for God." To some persons, the
far-penetrating mystic sweetness from the perfume bazaar adds an element
also. Here sit the Persian merchants in their delicate silken robes;
they weigh incense on tiny scales; they sort the gold-embossed vials of
attar of roses; their taper fingers move about amid whimsically small
cabinets and chests of drawers filled with ambrosial mysteries. There is
magic in names; these merchants are doubly interesting because they come
from Ispahan! Scanderoun--there is another; how it rolls off the tongue!
We do not wish for exact geographical descriptions of these places; that
would spoil all. We wish to chant, like Kit Marlowe's Tamburlaine (and
with similar indefiniteness):

"Is it not passing brave to be