with little shops. In the latter one
could buy anything, in any language, with any money. In them we saw
cheap straw hats made in Germany hung side by side with gorgeous and
beautiful stuffs from the Orient; shoddy European garments and Eastern
jewels; cheap celluloid combs and curious embroideries. The crowd of
passers-by in the streets were compounded in the same curiously mixed
fashion; a few Europeans, generally in white, and then a variety of
Arabs, Egyptians, Somalis, Berbers, East Indians and the like, each in
his own gaudy or graceful costume. It speaks well for the accuracy of
feeling, anyway, of our various "Midways," "Pikes," and the like of our
world's expositions that the streets of Port Said looked like Midways
raised to the nth power. Along them we sauntered with a pleasing feeling
of self-importance. On all sides we were gently and humbly besought--by
the shopkeepers, by the sidewalk vendors, by would-be guides, by
fortune-tellers, by jugglers, by magicians; all soft-voiced and
respectful; all yielding as water to rebuff, but as quick as water to
glide back again. The vendors were of the colours of the rainbow, and
were heavily hung with long necklaces of coral or amber, with scarves,
with strings of silver coins, with sequinned veils and silks, girt with
many dirks and knives, furnished out in concealed pockets with scarabs,
bracelets, sandalwood boxes or anything else under the broad canopy of
heaven one might or might not desire. Their voices were soft and
pleasing, their eyes had the beseeching quality of a good dog's, their
anxious and deprecating faces were ready at the slightest encouragement
to break out into the friendliest and most intimate of smiles. Wherever
we went we were accompanied by a retinue straight out of the Arabian
Nights, patiently awaiting the moment when we should tire; should seek
out the table of a sidewalk cafe; and should, in our relaxed mood, be
ready to unbend to our royal purchases.

At that moment we were too much interested in the town itself. The tiny
shops, with their smiling and insinuating Oriental keepers, were
fascinating in their displays of carved woods, jewellery, perfumes,
silks, tapestries, silversmiths' work, ostrich feathers, and the like.
To either side the main street lay long narrow dark alleys, in which
flared single lights, across which flitted mysterious long-robed
figures, from which floated stray snatches of music either palpitatingly
barbaric or ri