File:Mentone, Cairo and Corfu (1896) (14781337654).jpg

Identifier: mentonecairocorf00wool (find matches)
Title: Mentone, Cairo and Corfu
Year: 1896 (1890s)
Authors: Woolson, Constance Fenimore, 1840-1894
Subjects:
Publisher: New York : Harper & Brothers
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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, I think, could reproduce the beauty ofthis casement; but instead of the charming seventeenth-century English girls whom he would wish to placethere, realism would demand the hideous eunuchs, withtheir gold chains and scarf-pins ; or else (and thiswould be better) the dignified old Arab in a white tur-ban who sat cross-legged in the court with his longpipe, his half-closed eyes expressing his disdain for theAmerican visitors. The courtesy of the master of thehouse, however, made up for his servitors scorn. Thesheykh is a tall man, somewhat too portly, with amiabledark eyes, and a gleam of humor in his face. One scanshis features with interest, as if to catch some reflectionof the Prophet; but the rays from an ancestor whowalked the earth twelve hundred years ago are presum-ably faint. There is nothing modern in the sheykhsattire; his handsome flowing gown is of silk; he wearsa turban, slippers, and an India shawl wound round hiswaist like a sash. When the air is cool, he shrouds him-
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INTERIOR COURT OF A NATIVE HOUSE, CAIROFrom a photograph by Abdullah Freres, Cairo 201 self in a large outer cloak of fine dark blue cloth, whichis lined with white fur. Sometimes Sign or Ahmedcarries in his hand the Mohammedan rosary. Thisstring of beads appears to be used as Madame de Staelused her little stick, as the English called it (in Italy,more poetically, they named it a twig of laurel).Corrinne must always have this beside her plate at din-ner to play with before she conversed, or rather de-claimed. Her maid, in confidence, explained that it wasnecessary to madame to stimulate her ideas. Oneoften sees the rosary on duty when two Turks are con-versing. After a while, their subjects failing them, theyfall into silence. Then each draws out his string froma pocket, and they play with their beads for a momentor two, until, inspiration reviving, they begin talkingagain. One hopes that poor Ahmed Mohammed hasnot been driven to his string too often as mental sup-port during dumb vi

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