O Gladness! at length it sounds, that gun from the citadel.  Simultaneously rises the sweet cry of the Mu’ezzin, calling men to prayer, and the second cannon booms from the Abbasiyah Palace,[FN#8]-"Al Fitar!  Al

[p.79]Fitar!” fast-breaking! fast-breaking! shout the people, and a hum of joy rises from the silent city.  Your acute ears waste not a moment in conveying the delightful intelligence to your parched tongue, empty stomach, and languid limbs.  You exhaust a pot full of water, no matter its size.  You clap hurried hands[FN#9] for a pipe; you order coffee; and provided with these comforts, you sit down, and calmly contemplate the coming pleasures of the evening.

Poor men eat heartily at once.  The rich break their fast with a light meal,-a little bread and fruit, fresh or dry, especially water-melon, sweetmeats, or such digestible dishes as “Muhallabah,"-a thin jelly of milk, starch, and rice-flour.  They then smoke a pipe, drink a cup of coffee or a glass of sherbet, and recite the evening prayers; for the devotions of this hour are delicate things, and while smoking a first pipe after sixteen hours’ abstinence, time easily slips away.  Then they sit down to the Fatur (breakfast), the meal of the twenty-four hours, and eat plentifully, if they would avoid illness.

There are many ways of spending a Ramazan evening.  The Egyptians have a proverb, like ours of the Salernitan school: 

[p.80]"After Al-Ghada rest, if it be but for two moments:  After Al-Asha[FN#10] walk, if it be but two steps.”

The streets are now crowded with a good-humoured throng of strollers; the many bent on pleasure, the few wending their way to Mosque, where the Imam recites “Tarawih” prayers.[FN#11] They saunter about, the accustomed pipe in hand, shopping, for the stalls are open till a late hour; or they sit in crowds at the coffee-house entrance, smoking Shishas,[FN#12] (water-pipes), chatting, and listening to story-tellers, singers and itinerant preachers.  Here a bare-footed girl trills and quavers, accompanied by a noisy tambourine and a “scrannel pipe” of abominable discordance, in honour of a perverse saint whose corpse insisted upon being buried inside some respectable man’s dwelling-house.[FN#13] The scene reminds you strongly of the Sonneurs of Brittany and the Zampognari from the Abruzzian Highlands bagpiping before the Madonna.  There a tall, gaunt Maghrabi displays upon a square yard of

[p.81]dirty paper certain lines and blots, supposed to represent the venerable Ka’abah, and collects coppers to defray the expenses of his pilgrimage.  A steady stream of loungers sets through the principal thoroughfares towards the Azbakiyah Gardens, which skirt the Frank quarter; there they sit in the moonlight, listening to Greek and Turkish bands, or making merry with cakes, toasted grains, coffee, sugared-drinks, and the broad pleasantries of Kara Gyuz[FN#14] (the local Punch and Judy).  Here the scene is less