THE WAUPACA REPUBLICAN

May 1, 1896

 

MATRIMONY IN EGYPT

The Curious Wedding Processions That Are to be Seen in Cairo

 

            As you look out of your hotel window in Cairo, you will see a native musician sauntering by, twanging the lute of the country; then a sound like the tinkling of baby cymbals informs you that the sherbetly is going his round, with his huge glass jar along at his side, from which he dispenses (to the unwary) sweet, sticky, drinks of licorice juice or orange sirup in the brass saucers which he perpetually clinks in his hand.  Late at night the sounds of eastern life invade your pillow.  The distant throbbing of the naggarah tells you that a wedding procession is making its tour, and if you have the curiosity to get up and sally out you will be rewarded by one of the characteristic sights of Cairo, in which old and new are oddly blended.  Probably a circumcision is combined with the wedding to save expense, and the procession will be headed by the barber’s sign, a wooden frame raised aloft, followed by two or three gorgeously caparisoned camels – regular stage properties hired out for such occasions – carrying drummers, and leading the way for a serious of carriages crammed with little boys, each holding a neat white handkerchief to his mouth to keep out of the devil and the evil eye.  Then comes a closed carriage covered all over with a big cashmere shawl, held down firmly at the sides by brothers and other relations of the imprisoned bride; then more carriages and a general crowd of sympathizers.  More rarely the bride is borne in a cashmere covered litter swung between two camels, fore and aft; the hind camel must tuck his head under the litter, and is probably quite as uncomfortable as the bride, who runs a fair chance of seasickness in her rolling palanquin.

            In the old days the bride walked through the streets under a canopy carried by her friends, but this is now quite out of fashion, and European carriages are rapidly ousting even the camel litters.  But the cashmere shawl and the veil will not soon be abandoned.  The Egyptian woman is, at least in public, generally modest. She detects a stranger’s glance with magical rapidity, even when to all appearance looking the other way, and forthwith the veil is pulled closer over her mouth and nose.  When she meets you face to face, she does not drop her big eyes in the absurd fashion of western modesty.  She calmly turns them away from you.  It is much more cutting – really.   -  Saturday Review.