In a thousand narrow streets and
lanes, in the warm glow of the bazaars, in earth-damp huts, by blistering
quays, on the myriad ghiassas on the river, from long before sunrise till
the sunset-gun boomed from the citadel rising beside the great mosque
whose pinnacles seem to touch the blue, the slaves of the city of Prince
Kaid ground out their lives like corn between the millstones.
David had been long enough in Egypt to know what sort of toiling it was.
A man's labour was not his own. The fellah gave labour and taxes and
backsheesh and life to the State, and the long line of tyrants above him,
under the sting of the kourbash; the high officials gave backsheesh to
the Prince Pasha, or to his Mouffetish, or to his Chief Eunuch, or to his
barber, or to some slave who had his ear.
But all the time the bright, unclouded sun looked down on a smiling land,
and in Cairo streets the din of the hammers, the voices of the boys
driving heavily laden donkeys, the call of the camel-drivers leading
their caravans into the great squares, the clang of the brasses of the
sherbet-sellers, the song of the vendor of sweetmeats, the drone of the
merchant praising his wares, went on amid scenes of wealth and luxury,
and the city glowed with colour and gleamed with light.
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