o was more at home with Bedouins than with his own
brothers, and who was a mine of knowledge about the natives of Syria, of
Egypt, and the whole of Northern Africa--about their passions, their
customs, their superstitions, and all their ways of life. Isaacson had
cured him of a malarial fever contracted on one of his journeys. That
night they dined together, and after dinner Starnworth took Isaacson to
see some of the native quarters of the town.

It was towards eleven o'clock when Isaacson found himself sitting in a
small, rude cafe that was hidden in the very bowels of Cairo. Through
winding alleys they had reached it--alleys full of painted ladies,
alleys gleaming with the lights shed from solitary candles set within
entries tinted mauve, and blue, and scarlet, or placed half-way up
narrow flights of whitewashed stairs. And in these winding alleys,
mingled with human cries, and laughter, and murmured invitations, and
barterings, and refusals, there had been music that seemed to wind on
and on in ribands of sound--music that was hoarse and shrill and weary,
that was piercing, yet at the same time furtive--music that was
provocative, and yet that was often sad, with a strange sadness of the
desert and of desire among the sands. Even now, in the maze around this
cafe, there was another maze of sound, the tripping notes of Eastern
dance tunes, the wail of the African hautboy, the twitter of little
flutes that set the pace for the pale Circassians, the dull murmur of
daraboukkehs.

An old Arab who was "hajjee" brought them coffee, straight from the
glowing embers. Starnworth took from his pocket a little box of tobacco
and cigarette-papers, and deftly rolled two cigarettes. There were but
few people in the cafe, and they were Easterns--two Egyptians, a negro,
and three soldiers from the Soudan, black, thin almost as snakes, with
skins so dry that they looked like the skins of some reptiles of the
sands. And these Easterns were almost motionless, and seemed to be sunk
in dreams.

"Why did you bring me here?" asked Isaacson.

"It bores you?"

"No. But I want to know why you chose this cafe out of all the cafes of
Cairo."

"It's a very old and, among Easterns, very famous resort of smokers of
hashish. You notice the blackened walls, the want of light. The hashish
smoker does not desire any luxury or brightness. He wants his dream, and
he gets it here. You would scarcely suppose it, but there are rich
Egyptians of the