Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 23]
5.
English here – like ourselves for instance. Cairo is a most wonderfully fascinating place – but it is remarkable how little English is spoken here. It is all French & Arabic.
There are many fine streets & fine buildings & there is the crowded quarters where the Streets are narrow & dirty – the animals herding with their owners & quaint houses almost meeting overhead – a mixture of Naples & Colombo. There are many bazaars where each trade has its own quarter – I preferred the spice bazaar for the scent of the spices overcame the smells of the people but all are interesting & the more often one goes the more fascinated one becomes. But how I hate the haggling & beating down & yet if one does'nt one pays about 4 times as much as the goods are worth or the native expects.
There are plenty of trams here, electric ones with first & second class cars & a place for ladies & motor-taxis & victorias which are called Arabeyahs nearly always drawn by 2 horses & used by everyone. They take one quite a long drive for 3 piastres. Now a piaster is worth 2½ so it is not an extravagant way of getting about. Clothes & boots are cheap here & there are some fine shops. Chemist shops abound & street cafes are everywhere – just a small shop with chairs & tables all over the footpath.
Everywhere are sellers of native foods – here a man selling little tarts , there one with small loaves of bread (made in the shape & size of a quoit) & boiled eggs, others with little dishes of stews & or vegetables – the buyers squat down on the pavement & eat their meal with the utmost sang froid & seem to thoroughly enjoy the savoury mess. Men selling various sorts of drinks & fruits are everywhere. When we arrived oranges were plentiful & good & cost ½ a piaster each, now they are done. Bananas are small & rotten looking, figs are just coming in but rock & water melons are a glut in the markets & may be bought 2 for 5 piastres & are very good. There are plenty of very small apricots & plums & that is all the fruit. We do not eat the apricots or plums.
In this flat we have 3 servants (& it's only a small flat (2 Nubian boys (really men) & an Austrian woman who does the cooking. We never see her & as she speaks nothing but german we don't miss much. The two boys each named Mahomet do all the work. The elder has been with Dr Madden for 12 years he does the housekeeping & with the other does the house work & waits at table., he also answers the door & telephone. He speaks English to us, german to the cook Arabic to Dr Madden & French to the shop people. Tingsey call him Mahomette – we get very nice chickens, like undergrown bantams & nice pigeons, good chops, but sometimes they are a funny shape & I wonder if they are from goats or camels or what? – we also get tiny eggs & I dare say some are crow's eggs, for crows are very plentiful here. Vegetables are beans, tinned peas, & tiny marrow like cucumbers, asparagus & potatoes.
The woman cook gets £4 per month & sleeps here. Mahomet the first gets £4 per month, feeds himself & sleeps on the roof & Mahomet the 2nd gets £2 per month, feeds himself & also sleeps on the roof & Maromette keeps two wives on his princely screw – one in Nubia & one somewhere here.
Between 12 & 3 nothing is done here – it is very hot, shops close & everyone has a siesta, but the City wakes up again & stays awake till one or two in the morning.
When first we came here Will was stationed at Mena House, out at the Pyramids about an hours journey from Cairo by tram (which only goes once an hour) but now his Unit has been moved to the Ghizerah [Gezira] Palace – a huge building on the Island of Ghizerah, which is connected with Cairo by two bridges & has a frequent tram service.
Quite close to the Hospital is the Sports Ground & Will joined this so that we could go there. The Ghizerah Sporting Club – to give it its proper title – has about 15 acres on this big island & has about 24 very good tennis courts, 2 cricket grounds 2 polo grounds & race-course all with grandstands complete. Also a 19 hole golf course & croquet lawns with a club house & a childrens ground - only for children with swings seesaws sand pits a giant stride & tennis court & a croquet lawn & there we go nearly every afternoon between 5 & 7. There are some French & English children who go also & a great time they all have. I beleive in the season its simply a seething mass of children & nurses, but now there are nearly only about 12 children all told & about 6 nurses.
I believe before our men left for the front that the City was simply alive with our troops. I know that while they were camped at Mena the Authorities ran a quarter hourly tram service of 3 cars each tram & then could not cope with the traffic – now the glory has departed from Mena (the village at the Pyramids) & all that remains of the huge camp of nearly 2500 men is a few wooden structures & the stones which outlined the different lines.
We do not see many flowers here – too hot now, but there are some magnificent flowering trees, one in especial has been a mass of scarlet blossom ever since we arrived & is everywhere, & the oleanders are very fine, both pink & white & lantana in many colours is much used for hedges. Prickly pear – that bane in our land – is used for hedges here as a thing of beauty. I suppose where colour is so cheap & every inch of ground cultivated there is no chance for the lantana & prickly pears.
One sees very few dogs & all are muzzled – On the whole the animals here seem very well cared for. We see many funerals every day – they are always led by one blind man or more & some friends, then the body carried by friends in a light wooden box with a top like a house & at one end going up into the air for a couple of feet & draped all over with coloured muslins & shawls