2.5.6
And further, a tribe of craving catamites there dress and talk like women and “veil their beards”462 to keep them out of sight, jostling at the watering hole of femininity those who wear such veils by right, plucking out their facial hair, making eyes at men, dressing to the nines, mincing, tittupping, and speaking in sugary whines, though they are the ugliest of God’s creatures. And further, the city’s police chief is so solicitous of its people’s welfare that it amounts almost to tyranny, for he commands everyone who walks its highways by night to have with him a lantern, even if the night is moonlit, out of fear lest they trip over something in one of the city’s marketplaces and fall into a hole or a pit and their legs be broken or their necks crushed. If anyone, other than someone wearing a Frankish hat, be found roaming around at night without a lantern in his hand, his foot is shackled to his hand, his hand to his neck, his neck to a rope, the rope to a peg, the peg to a wall, and the wall to Nākir and Nakīr, to the roasting of hellfire. And further, the Sons of Ḥannā463 there have a way of writing that is known to none but themselves464 and have letters like our own but which can be read only if one holds them within an inch of one’s face, as I have seen them do. Another is that, when one of them dies, his family wails and keens over him in the hope that he will return to them, his milkskin filled with cured fish fry.465 A further curiosity of the place is that ignoble birds there may pretend to be mighty eagles,466 flies hawks, cow-camels bull-camels, donkey foals oryxes, and cats tigers — provided only that these animals have been imported from distant lands.
2.5.7
Further, many of its inhabitants believe that many thoughts in the head lead to many worries and vexations and vice versa, that the mind that ponders at length grasps the distant matter in the same manner that the tall man grasps the distant fruit, etc., that such abundance is a cause of destitution and such prolonged cogitation results in a shorter life. They adduce many pertinent proofs for this, saying that the mind is to the head as the light to the wick: if the light is left burning, the wick will be used up, and the latter can be preserved only if the former is extinguished; or that it’s like the water in a water course: if the water keeps flowing, it must inevitably either soak into the ground or empty into the sea, but when it’s contained it remains; or like money in a purse: so long as the exiguously monied one (meaning the owner of the money)467 keeps putting his hand into the purse and spending, what he has will disappear (unless he tie down his hand so it can’t reach the purse, or the purse so it can’t reach his hand); or like a leaping billy goat: if he keeps on leaping, his vital juices will leak out and he will perish, so that a thong must be tied from his willy to his belly to prevent him from mounting the female.
2.5.8
Consequently, they have agreed among themselves on a method of halting the flow of the mind through the open arena of the brain at certain times so that it will be available to them at others, the method in question being to smoke, chew, contemplate, or talk about, hashish, for when they consume it, care takes off and pleasure advances, grief turns its back and the whole place dances. Any who sees them in this state longs to be registered among their company and entered among their constituency, be he even the chief judge. And further, its roads are ever packed with loaded camels, and, if anyone walking them sees one coming, he has to make way; if he doesn’t, there’s no guarantee he won’t lose an eye. This crowding may bring with it good things, as in the case of the woman who went with her mother to attend her sister’s wedding: the rise in her fortunes came from her setting herself down.468
CHAPTER 6: NOTHING
2.6.1
I had thought that, if I abandoned the Fāriyāq and set about describing Cairo, I’d find rest, but the second turned out to be just like the first, or, to put it differently, the vice was the same as the versa. I must now therefore sit myself down a while in the shade of this short chapter to brush off the dust of my labors. Then I shall arise once more, should the Almighty so allow.
CHAPTER 7: A DESCRIPTION OF CAIRO
2.7.1
I am risen to my feet once more, praising and thanking God. Now, where are my pen and inkwell, that I may describe this happy city, which deserves the eulogies of all who behold it, for it is the home of good things, the mother-lode of bounty and magnanimity? Its people are refined, cultured, and kind to the stranger, and there’s such amiability in their speech that the grief-struck of getting any sadder need never be in danger. When they hail you, they regale you. When they salute you, they save you. After they’ve visited you, you can’t wait to see them once more, and when you visit them, they open to you their hearts, to say nothing of their door. As for their scholars, praise of them has spread to every quarter, leaving the rest dead in the water. In fact, their geniality, natural delicacy, modesty, and welcoming mien cannot be over-extolled, while, for every condition of men among them, there is an appropriate respectful salute, be they Christians or others. The latter address the former as “My Master,” and have no aversion to visiting them, mixing with them, or keeping company with them, in contrast with the custom of the Muslims of the Levant, and this a virtue to be credited to their account as against others.
2.7.2
It seems that these traits, of high moral character and natural delicacy, are things ingrained in all the people of Cairo, for their common folk too are good-natured and courteous. All of them are eloquent and articulate, quick-thinking and good at pleasant joking and joshing. Most have a liking for the kind of jokes they call anqāṭ, which are something like mujārazah, which is “a kind of joking back and forth that resembles mutual abuse,”469 and are almost a kind of puzzle, for anyone not trained in them will find it impossible to understand the slightest thing about them, even if he’s a poet.
2.7.3
All of them love music, amusements, and license, and their singing is the most tuneful possible; anyone who gets used to it finds that no other can move him. Similarly, their instruments seem almost to give tongue to the one who plays them, the most important being the lute, while they pay scant attention to the reed flute. They have methods and styles of playing the lute that seem almost to belong to the world of the divine mysteries. I would criticize their singing for one thing only, which is that they repeat a single word of a line of verse or a mawwāl so many times that the listener loses the pleasure of the meaning. However, this is mostly to be found among those who merely sponge off the art. At the opposite pole you have the method of the people of Tunis, whose singing is closer to chant; they claim that this was the way of the Arabs of al-Andalus.