FEASTING AND FASTING IN EGYPT.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3129, 7 August 1922, Page 8

FEASTING AND FASTING IN EGYPT.

If, during this merry month, of May, you meet an Egyptian you really dislike and wish to be unkind to him, there is no better way than to light a cigarette and puff it ostentatiously, taking care to blow some smoke into his face. During the daylight hours; this has the same effect as the small boy sucking a lemon on the cornet player in the brass band. For this is the moon of Ramadan, and from before sunrise till after sunset no Moslem may eat, drink, smoke, smell perfume (difficult to avoid, this, in Cairo), or indulge in any worldly pleasure. Happily our May this year is cool, but when Ramadan falls in the heat of August your Moslem friends are best left strictly alone till after their evening breakfast. It is enough for one Moslem to testify before the Cadi that he has seen the new moon for Ramad'an to start the next day. For the rest of the month you need not expect any work from your servants or clerks, many of whom sit up the greater part of the night making up for lost time by feasting. Much, entertaining goes on these evenings, often in the street. In Cairo, if you want to give a party, you collar as much of the street in front of your dwelling as you need, tent it over with gaily embroidered Arabic tapestries, bang more of them on the walls of the houses, regardless of robbing your neighbors of light: and air. and lay your best rugs in the roadway. thus completing the strife des fetes. Before now, to get home, I have had to walk through a party to which I had not been invited, and where I did not even know the host. Or, rather, I have made the attempt, but Egyptians in such circumstances make the stranger as welcome a.s the most honored guest. Here are some types of Ramadan receptions. | sat in a big garden in a middle-class suburb the other night. Chairs were tightly packed all round the gravel walks. In an arbor in the centre a veiled Sheikha, (woman chanter of the Koran) sang to the accompaniment of deep-drawn “Alla—ahs !” the sign of appreciation from the guests. One sits and 1 talks, drinks a tiny little cup of thick coffee, flavored with cinnamon or arbor, smokes a cigarette, and so on. ' The next visit was a complete contrast, in the courtyard of an old house in a native quarter, lit only by a big oil lamp suspended in the middle of a vine-covered 1 pergola. An unseen singer wailed in an inner room behind, a heavy wrought iron grille. One bad the uncomfortable feeling that one was perhaps expected to view a- corpse upstairs. So wc hied ns to a in one cheerful scene, again in a courtyard, but brightly lit and with the laughter and excited tittering el women and children coming from an overhanging harem window, whence the occupants see everything but are concealed behind the “meshrabiya" screen of carved wood. Most striking of all is the huge court-yard of a big mansion, containing several hundred people. It. is a mediaeval scene. The street vendors of cigarettes or papers come in to ply their trade or squat on the ground and listen to the singing. Front a great vaulted kitchen issues a stream of servitors carrying platters of savoury foods for a banquet in progress within. There are beautiful old carved stone doorways and iron grilles wrought in delicate arabesque designs. 'I lirongh one such window there is a glimpse of a little inner chamber, dimly lit, with a globe and bookshelves, and two young men in turbans and graceful robes poring oyer an illuminated manuscript; a picture that would have delighted an artist of the Dutch school. Everywhere there is the same grave courtesy, the same sonorous greeting Jon coming and going: “Es salaam ■* -A lai kll in ! Alaikum es salaam!” (Peace he on yon and on yon be peace), hj Tim morning fast is drawing nigh; it •jj starts at the hour when there is sufticient light to distinguish plainly a |j||white from a blade thread. Presently ffija. gnn will boom out from the Citadel ill as a warning that the last meal of the BjSniglit must he taken. On the same erjMrand a little old man hobbles round HJtbc' streets, striking a small drum with trap of leather. He is the H“inissaliir.” bent, skinny, walking Hwitb a fantastic gait that would make MfSliis fortune if be were enrolled by Mr fflOsear Asdic. Each district has its Hmtssahir, who recites a little compliBBmentary cry before the houses of his in return for the small fee paid for his services.