I. GOING TO BOULAK. In a gold and purple December sunset, the Pacha and I walked down to the boat at Boulak, the port of Cairo. The Pacha was my friend, and it does not concern you, gracious reader, to know if he were Sicilian, or Syrian; whether he wore coat or kaftan, had a hareem, or was a baleful bachelor. The air was warm, like a May evening in Italy. Behind us, the slim minarets of Cairo spired shiningly in the brilliance, like the towers of a fairy city, under the sunset sea. These minarets make the Eastern cities so beautiful. The heavy mound-like domes and belfries of western Europe are of the earth, earthy. But the mingled mass of building, which a city is, soars lightly to the sky, in the lofty minarets on whose gold crescent crown the sun lingers and lingers, making them the earliest stars of evening. To our new eyes every thing was picture. Vainly the broad road was crowded with Muslim artisans, home-returning from their work. To the mere Muslim observer, they were carpenters, masons laborers, and tradesmen of all kinds. We passed many a meditating Cairene, to whom there was nothing but the monotony of an old story in that evening and on that road. But we saw all the pageantry of oriental romance quietly donkeying into Cairo. Camels, too, swaying and waving like huge phantoms of the twilight, horses with strange gay trappings curbed by tawny, turbaned equestrians, the peaked toe of the red slipper resting in the shovel stirrup. It was a fair festal evening. The whole world was masquerading, and so well that it seemed reality. I saw Fadladeen with a gorgeous turban and a gay sash. His chibouque, wound with colored silk and gold threads, was borne behind him by a black slave. Fat and funny was Fadladeen as of old; and though Fermorz was not by, it was clear to see in the languid droop of his eye, that choice Arabian verses were sung by the twilight in his mind. Yet was Venus still the evening star; for behind him, closely veiled, came Lalla Rookh. She was wrapped in a vast black silken bag, that bulged like a balloon over her donkey. But a star-suffused evening cloud was that bulky blackness, as her twin eyes shone forth liquidly lustrous. Abon Hassan sat at the city gate, and I saw Har oun Alrashid quietly coming up in that disguise of a Moussoul merchant. I could not but wink at Abon, for I knew him so long ago in the Arabian Nights. But he rather stared than saluted, as friends may, in a masquerade. There was Sinbad the porter, too, hurrying to Sinbad the Sailor. I turned and watched his form fade in the twilight, yet I doubt if he reached Bagdad in time for the eighth history. Scarce had he passed, when a long string of donkeys ambled by, bearing, each, one of the inflated balloons. It was a hareem taking the evening air. A huge eunuch was the captain, and rode before. They are bloated, dead-eyed creatures, the eunuchs -but there be no eyes of greater importance to marital minds. The ladies came gaily after, in single file, chatting together, and although Araby's daughters are still born to blush unseen, they looked. earnestly upon the staring strangers. Did those strangers long to behold that hidden beauty? Could they help it if all the softness and sweetness of hidden faces radiated from melting eyes? Then came Sakkas-men with hog skins slung over their backs, full of water. I remembered the land and the time of putting wine into old bottles, and was shoved back beyond glass. Pedlersswarthy fatalists in lovely lengths of robe and tur |