He said they might take their time,
as he did not expect to get up steam again much before night, and
slipped a coin into each of the girl's hands, telling them to use it
"for fun." Then, explaining that by the time they were ready to board
her again the steamer would doubtless be in her slip, and thus easily
reached, he lifted his cap and was off.
"How strange it all is!" cried Bess, with a slow delighted survey.
"This street we are in might be a part of New York, or of London, so
far as buildings go, but the old Egyptian fashions and people, the open
booths, and the queer old street venders are all mixed through it,
somehow, until it seems as unreal as a dream.
"Yes," laughed Hope; "it makes me think of a girl dressed in a Paris
gown, but wearing a mishmak, like our ayahs on the ship."
"It's the new grafted upon the old," observed Mr. Lawrence, "and we are
now coming to what is all old."
He led the way into a narrow lane-like street, which seemed mostly a
succession of rude steps, leading upwards.
Here they had to move one side and hug the wall, to make way for a
donkey-train, with heavily laden panniers, which was being goaded along
by dark-skinned boys, who, as Dwight remarked, seemed to wear all their
clothes on their heads, where the heavy turban was coiled by the yard,
while thence to the waist was scarcely any covering. Their black eyes
gleamed good-naturedly, however, and when Mr. Lawrence flung a handful
of small coin among them they scrambled vivaciously, salaamed to him
and to the girls, and showed every white tooth with pleasure at the
"backsheesh.
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