CAIRO.

Evening Post, Issue 96, 31 May 1865, Page 3

CAIRO.

Some people are able, by the power of their fancy, to reproduce in ordinary daylight <he Arabian NightH of old El Kahira, or Cairo, as it is called. We think it quite possible, after some months of total separation frcm Europeans, devoted to the study and reading of Arabic, and to the smoking of timback in a narghelli, that one might reproduce before his mind's eye the ideal glories of the days of Hnroun al Riwchid. But for a man going from one railway to another, it is impossible to enjoy the old faith in Aladdin's lamp, to invest any Barber with interest, or to expect to get directions from the Genii, as we do now from Rrndshnw. Yet one evening, when passing through a bazaar, we took a cup, or rather a china thimbleful, of delicious coffee, with its dark grounds as more solid nourishment ; and then we had, for a moment, such a glimpse of Eastern life as might, with time and culture, have grown into a genuine Arabian night feeling. It was a repetition of the scene in the bazaar of Alexandria described in my first paper, with the difference of a larger cafe, a more interested audience, and, above all, the fiet that they were listening, as former generations had done, to a person reading aloud, with great gusto, stories of a similar kind to those of " The Thousand and One Nights." It was a pleasant sighf, and suggested not only romantic thoughts of the past of El Kahira and Bagdad, but what was of infinitely more importance to me, practical thoughts as to the immense power, which we Westerns have never developed, of good story-telling for the people, illustrative of minor morals, and of " tne thousand and one" every-day details of common life, which should be considered and attended to by them for their physical and social well-being. The deep foundations of life require to be firmly laid, and big stones placed upon them, by heavier and more complicated machinery thin tins, l>ut many an instevstice might be filled up in the building, and many a valuable hint for its internal economy and comfort, by the lighter machinery of good racy, vernacular, pointed story-telling, vhich would form most effective week-day sermons for our people over their tea and coffee.— Scenes m Cairo.