Thence we went to see Pompey's Pillar and Cleopatra's Needle, the
dahabeas ready to go up the Nile, &c.; and returned to the hotel in
time for dinner and a chat afterwards in the cool courtyard.
_Tuesday, May 1st_.--I wrote from 3 a.m. to 6.30 a.m., in order to
send letters off by the French mail, and at seven Mabelle and I
sallied forth on donkeys to visit the market. There was not much to
see, however, everything being so crowded and jammed up, meat, fish,
vegetables, and fruit, all close together. The crowd was amusing, as
all the European householders had negroes or Arabs following them,
laden with their purchases. We found some lovely flowers in a street
near the market, and then we went on to the big gold and silver
bazaar, and to the Turkish and Syrian bazaars, where we saw all the
specialities of Constantinople, and Broussa, Damascus, and Jerusalem
laid out before us. After breakfast, the antics of two enormous apes,
who came round on a donkey, accompanied by a showman and a boy, amused
the children much. They were hideously ugly, but the cleverest monkeys
I ever saw. They went through a regular little play, quarrelled with
one another; the man and the boy rode the ape, and made him kick; at
last the ape was hurt, and lay fainting in the man's arms, limp and
languid, just able to sip a little water; then he died, and dropped
down stiff, with his eyes shut.
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