Sometimes we passed under
covered ways perfectly dark, which I trod, not without fear of
arousing some noxious animal; then we came to narrow avenues, between
the backs of high stone houses, occasionally emerging into small
quadrangles, having a single tree in one corner. We passed a house
inhabited by one of the superior description of Frank residents,
and we knew that it must be tenanted by a European by the handsome
curtains and other furniture displayed through its open windows.
Turning into a street, for the very narrow lanes led chiefly along
the backs of houses, we looked into the lower apartments, the doors of
which were usually unclosed, and here we saw the men at their
ordinary occupations, and were made acquainted with their domestic
arrangements. At length we arrived at a court, which displayed a door
and a flight of steps at the corner. Upon knocking, we were admitted
by an Egyptian servant, who showed us up stairs into a room, where we
found the master of the house seated upon one of the low stools which
serve as the support of the dinner-trays in Egypt, the only other
furniture that the room contained being a table, and the customary
divan, which extended all round. Coffee was brought in, served in
small China cups; but all the coffee made in Egypt was too like the
Nile mud for me to taste, and warm and fatigued with a walk through
places from which the fresh air was excluded, I felt myself unequal
to make the trial now.
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