The crowd of passers-by in the streets were compounded in the same curiously mixed fashion; a few Europeans, generally in white, and then a variety of Arabs, Egyptians, Somalis, Berbers, East Indians and the like, each in his own gaudy or graceful costume.  It speaks well for the accuracy of feeling, anyway, of our various “Midways,” “Pikes,” and the like of our world’s expositions that the streets of Port Said looked like Midways raised to the nth power.  Along them we sauntered with a pleasing feeling of self-importance.  On all sides we were gently and humbly besought—­by the shopkeepers, by the sidewalk vendors, by would-be guides, by fortune-tellers, by jugglers, by magicians; all soft-voiced and respectful; all yielding as water to rebuff, but as quick as water to glide back again.  The vendors were of the colours of the rainbow, and were heavily hung with long necklaces of coral or amber, with scarves, with strings of silver coins, with sequinned veils and silks, girt with many dirks and knives, furnished out in concealed pockets with scarabs, bracelets, sandalwood boxes or anything else under the broad canopy of heaven one might or might not desire.  Their voices were soft and pleasing, their eyes had the beseeching quality of a good dog’s, their anxious and deprecating faces were ready at the slightest encouragement to break out into the friendliest and most intimate of smiles.  Wherever we went we were accompanied by a retinue straight out of the Arabian Nights, patiently awaiting the moment when we should tire; should seek out the table of a sidewalk cafe; and should, in our relaxed mood, be ready to unbend to our royal purchases.

At that moment we were too much interested in the town itself.  The tiny shops, with their smiling and insinuating Oriental keepers, were fascinating in their displays of carved woods, jewellery, perfumes, silks, tapestries, silversmiths’ work, ostrich feathers, and the like.  To either side the main street lay long narrow dark alleys, in which flared single lights, across which flitted mysterious long-robed figures, from which floated stray snatches of music either palpitatingly barbaric or ridiculously modern.  There the authority of the straight, soldierly-looking Soudanese policemen ceased, and it was not safe to wander unarmed or alone.

Besides these motley variegations of the East and West, the main feature of the town was the street car.  It was an open-air structure of spacious dimensions, as though benches and a canopy had been erected rather haphazard on a small dancing platform.  The track is absurdly narrow in gauge; and as a consequence the edifice swayed and swung from side to side.  A single mule was attached to it loosely by about ten feet of rope.  It was driven by a gaudy ragamuffin in a turban.  Various other gaudy ragamuffins lounged largely and picturesquely on the widely spaced benches.  Whence it came or whither it went I do not know.  Its orbit swung into the main street, turned a corner, and disappeared.  Apparently Europeans did not patronize this picturesque wreck, but drove elegantly but mysteriously in small open cabs conducted by totally incongruous turbaned drivers.