Cairo, Sketches of Its History, Monuments, and Social Life (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898 Excerpt: ...those special occasions when the Egyptian makes it a matter of conscience to revel, --such as marriage feasts and the periodical festivals of the Muslim Kalendar. It is then that parties of 'Almas are engaged to sing; groups of wanton Ghawazy dancers are introduced into the presence of decent women, to entertain them with their ungraceful and suggestive writhings; and clowns and buffoons are employed to divert the guests with their grotesque and generally obscene fooling, just as they diverted the ancestors of these very people in the days of the Pharaohs. As a quiet English citizen, who goes to his work every day and to his doze every evening, and hates the thought of a theatre, considers it his bounden duty to launch out into untold extravagance on the occasion of his daughter's wedding, so the Egyptian, however poor he is, will rather pay cent. per cent, interest all his life, than not borrow enough money to celebrate his own or his family's weddings with pomp and revelry. An Egyptian wedding is a very curious performance. In the first place, you must not think of seeking a wife yourself. Young ladies in the East are not wooed in person, and no lover's eyes may see his mistress until he has married her. Modesty, according to Mohammedan ideas, is incompatible with visibility, and if young men and maidens do happen to see each other's faces, " the curse of God is on the seer and the seen." "The best of women," said the blessed Fatima, daughter of the Prophet, "is she who sees not men, and whom they see not." Hence the would-be bridegroom must act through an intermediary. Probably, however, you will not have to trouble yourself in the matter: your excellent father, following the example of Abraham, who sent out a faithful servan...