Queer Things About Egypt

Book Excerpt: ...sixty thousand words, and thereby curtailing the space indispensable for a description of the life and cities on the Nile, from the Sea to Assuan, was to generalise upon it in an introductory essay. My point of view is indicated by the title I have chosen for it, Cairo an Arab City of the Middle Ages. I have an additional reason for relegating this little historical study of the glorious old buildings of Cairo into an introduction. For it is written in a serious vein, while the rest of the book, especially the dozen chapters about the irresistible drolleries of education, Society, and housekeeping in Egypt, which follow the Introduction, present queer things about Egypt at every turn. In the Ismailia quarter, where the Savoy Hotel lies, Cairo is a cross between Northumberland Avenue and Victoria Street. A mile away, in the Bab-es-Suweyla, the apparition of Saladin, the chivalrous Sultan who fought against our Richard Coesur de Lion in the Crusades, would look quite natural. And Saladin must ofte...