thoroughly Oriental than within the city; but the appearance of Frank dress amongst the varieties of Eastern costume, the moon-lit sky, and the light mist hanging over the deep shade of the Acacia trees-whose rich scented yellow-white blossoms are popularly compared to the old Pasha’s beard[FN#15]-make it passing picturesque.  And the traveller from the far East remarks with wonder the presence of certain ladies, whose only mark of modesty is the Burka, or face-veil:  upon this laxity the police looks with lenient eyes, inasmuch as, until very lately, it paid a respectable tax to the state.[FN#16]

Returning to the Moslem quarter, you are bewildered

[p.82]by its variety of sounds.  Everyone talks, and talking here is always in extremes, either in a whisper, or in a scream; gesticulation excites the lungs, and strangers cannot persuade themselves that men so converse without being or becoming furious.  All the street cries, too, are in the soprano key.  “In thy protection! in thy protection!” shouts a Fellah peasant to a sentinel, who is flogging him towards the station-house, followed by a tail of women, screaming, “Ya Gharati-ya Dahwati-ya Hasrati-ya Nidamati-O my calamity!  O my shame!” The boys have elected a Pasha, whom they are conducting in procession, with wisps of straw for Mash’als, or cressets, and outrunners, all huzzaing with ten-schoolboy power.  “O thy right!  O thy left!  O thy face!  O thy heel!  O thy back, thy back!” cries the panting footman, who, huge torch on shoulder, runs before the grandee’s carriage; “Bless the Prophet and get out of the way!” “O Allah bless him!” respond the good Moslems, some shrinking up to the walls to avoid the stick, others rushing across the road, so as to give themselves every chance of being knocked down.  The donkey boy beats his ass with a heavy palm-cudgel,-he fears no treadmill here,-cursing him at the top of his voice for a “pander,” a “Jew,” a “Christian,” and a “son of the One-eyed, whose portion is Eternal Punishment.”  “O chick pease!  O pips!” sings the vendor of parched grains, rattling the unsavoury load in his basket.  “Out of the way, and say, ‘There is one God,’” pants the industrious water-carrier, laden with a skin, fit burden for a buffalo.  “Sweet-water, and gladden thy soul, O lemonade!” pipes the seller of that luxury, clanging his brass cups together.  Then come the beggars, intensely Oriental.  “My supper is in Allah’s hands, my supper is in Allah’s hands! whatever thou givest, that will go with thee!” chaunts the old vagrant, whose wallet perhaps contains more provision than the basket of many a respectable shopkeeper. [p.83]"Na’al abuk[FN#17]-rucse thy father-O brother of a naughty sister!” is the response of some petulant Greek to the touch of the old man’s staff.  “The grave is darkness, and good deeds are its lamp!” sing the blind women, rapping two sticks together:  “upon Allah! upon Allah!  O daughter!” cry the bystanders, when the obstinate “bint"[FN#18] (daughter) of sixty years seizes their hands, and will not let go without extorting a farthing.  “Bring the sweet” (i.e. fire), “and take the full,"[FN#19] (i.e., empty cup), euphuistically cry the long-moustached, fierce-browed Arnauts to the coffee-house keeper, who stands by them charmed by the rhyming repartee that flows so readily from their lips.