| Show 1 THE LAND OF SHE The Egyptians and Orientals are I Fond of Show WE ARE A BLESSED PEOPLE The Alinchs and Their Dunccts Marriage Ceremony In the House of a Turk True Believers Total Abstainers A IATIC TURKEY June 141S89 fSpeci Correspondence of Tun HEKAIU Informer a In-former correspondence it was agreed that we should have a letter more about the manners and customs of the laud of SHI WHO MUuT BE VBIIFI At Cairo the women like those of Naples ride asses and mules sitting in the masculine mascu-line attitude Their dress consists of a largo cloak on the outside and a long strip of heavy lawn for a veil with which to hide their face and breast otherwise exposed The Egyptians and Oriontals generally arc fond of shows They amuse themselves with feats of physical exercise leaping racing ropedancing wrestling singing and dancing The coarse jests of buffoons excite the ready laugh of a sensual and corrupt people Thin altnehs or female troubadours or improvisatores are talented women who chiefly amuse the rich They come to re Hove tho monotony the harem life teach rig the ladies now tunes poems and dances of a rattler unbecoming nature Some of these females it is said have cultivated minds and an agreeable conversation their poetical habits render them familiar with tho softest and most delicate expressions During meals they are seated on a slight elevation and sing or recite with genuine taco and later on in the ladies apart went much more elegantly furnished they perform their piutomim contortions and dances which ate interspersed with pointed savings or ditties tho groundwork of wflicu is most commonly love and intrigueS intrigue-S JOn they throw off their veil and being wrought up step by step by the lubricity of their allegoiical but sensual theme they also throw off all modesty After this the scene becomes as painful to behold as dis g aceful to relate The Moslem looks upon ail this complacently as a pleasant passing dream and while he makes a louder gargling garg-ling noise in his nargillh or pipe he muses saying Allahhas not Allah given us all things Have wo not wives and alniehs to infuse life into them Have we not all the good things of this world The sun the moon rain and fields Have we not all the holy places Mecca the saintly and holy JeruslPin All the prophets tombs and Stamboul the great city i e Constanti nople TKUIV WE MIE A BLEACH 1EOIIH bet tho almcli begin again It does this old soul good to behold her graceful writh ings I Daughter of the poets where art thouJ Sing and dance again Cheer mo Surely thou doest well and I will pay thee like a pasha that I ought to be By my two eyes and my whole harem I will give thee a goodly backsheesh And when their the-ir ist concludes ho exclaims Tis enough By my two eyes when she requires re-quires it the thing must be given be it through fire water or stone JTho goodly gift amounts to one or two jiastres 5 to 10 cents more than th u regular regu-lar wages and is quite satisfactory as food is cheap and her stage costume is rather inexpensive consisting of a few beads and bracelets on arras and legs The rest of her attire except a long but narrow gauze sash which winds around her here one there consists entirely of a zecollete which to look nice the reader knows only needs washing and no ironing As an leiiurauboiiu would uunuiy suggest however that a trille less of authropologi ind a little additional dry goods might bt better adapted to western melodrama Moslem women marry that is are given in marl a > t at the age of fourteen or ni teen at twenty they are past their prime The affair is usually regulated by the olde females the husband seldom seeing the wife until the day of union It is only a ml contract between their relatives 01 mutual friends signed by the bridegroom dud his father The ceremony over the vomen clasp their hands in cadence while making joyful and congratulatory shouts The young couple then EAT SWEETS TOGETHER having their first teteatete after which they may withdraw and soon a processions procession-s organized headed by a herald who carlos car-los ou the end of a long pole a red silk or cotton cloth or handkerchief like a banner This is the signal for great joy after which festivities begin sherbets and iced sweets and creams are passed around and the dancing girls and singing men come in a kettle drum hammered monotonously with r short leathern strap announces the end of a stanza and the close of an ixt or scene is proclaimed by Turkish drums and squeak ug Moorish fifes to relieve the monotony I If which a number of guttural voices frequently fre-quently chime in A few more sweet meats go the rounds and more smokes are indulged tn by the ladies as well as the men and as the hour of prayer draws nigh each one retires re-tires with a Chinese paper lantern without with-out which if one travels at night in the smaller cities makes him or her liable to arrest on suspicion of robbery or immoral habits In the house of a Moslem Turk tte womens apartments are sumptuously furnished fur-nished Persian and Turkish rugs lie around in profusion and all the other articles are ot the finest and most expensive expen-sive sort but those of the males arc only remarkable for a surprisingly plain though meat stylo and great cleanness inAjl meals Jd1 large dish of pilawf appears in the middle ot the table which table in lie richer houses is merely shallow circu jar platter or copper plate slightly tinned over Around the pilawf stewed rice with oil or suet are numerous dishes of meat foul fish and horse or lima beans ea h guest with his spoon fingers or with apiece a-piece of cako instead of a fork or spoon as tho case may be picks from the common or general dishes those morsels which invites invite-s fancy In justice to them I will say that they DO xor DH1VEL OR SLO21BEK so much in eating but that I have risked fliy forefinger and thumb into the steaming dishes while squatting around the low tabular ° tab-ular stool which supports the big platter that sometimes is a yard in diameter and never less than a cubit about two feet Where they can afford it much animal ood is indulged in but where means are scarce as often happens they resort to barley peas lentils and salads of lettuce escarollc thistles and prickly artichokes In their season fruits are plentiful as the reader may easily imagine when considering consider-ing tho vast lands wherein lives she who must be veiled which extends from the Lybian Waste to tho Caucasus and from Gibraltar to Babel Mandad Consequently Conse-quently in the sharkich or market we Jiud pips from LeCanons and Ararats conifers con-ifers and tho fruits of more exotic endog ens such as the stately cocoanut palms palmettos dates bananas and the more humble though loudsmelling pailics leek I onions and cibouslHt wtch botanists grave y assure us belong to the same lass as tho palms etc mentioned men-tioned Fortunately they tell ue that thero is a difference be tvccn sea weeds and chestnut trees This scientific dictum may have been attained when they found impossible the production of vigorous hybrids by the mating of these two species Barbary figs or prickly pears abound in Syria Mulberries and grapes in Turkey I Tho Mohammedans being so enjoined by Al Koran their rule of faith use no wiue but the Christians distil from the date a strong drink called aragy j THE TUBE BELIEVERS will drink only coffee or mild drinks which otter being highly impregnated with vac harine matter of varied extraction seldom keep more then a day in which and the sale of snow instead of ice a great trade is urivtn Mohammedans hold idiots and the w1lC 14 gross I reverence supposing these I unlucky wretches to be possessed by particularly par-ticularly benign Johns or spirits It is a queer sight to see how some of these possessed saints carry on their devilish tricks The barbers are the common practitioners practition-ers of physic or medicine throughout the lands of She Although they attend to some surgical operations their knowledge of the healing art is extremely limited they know something about commonest drugs such as opium gumarabic senna saffron rhubarb and the questionable virtues of mercury R EDXA I |
