I used to like watching the Egyptian women carrying water gourds and things on their heads. I never saw one come to grief; their sense of balance was A1. It made a fellow stare some to see a slender little woman about seven-stone-nothing pick up a big gourd of water for all the world like a ten-gallon drum, balance it on her head, and trip off with it, wearing a kind of "old-man-you-couldn't-lick-that" smile on her face. I once saw a woman carrying on her head what I at first took to be a small hut; on coming closer it proved to be a large door piled up with all the family goods and chattels. The man of the house rode beside the old lady on a donkey, encouraging her the while between puffs at his cigarette by singing an Arab love song. He had a voice like a quinsy-smitten parrakeet, so, perhaps, that accounted for her staying power. And yet she seemed quite satisfied with this truly Eastern division of labour. They all do: ask a woman in Egypt why she doesn't make her better half (or quarter, or other fraction) graft a bit more, and she thinks you are poking fun at her; go one further and tell her that _your_ wife doesn't do any hard work (which is a lie!) and she, if she can speak English, promptly informs you that "Engelsch woman one dam fool!" So there you are—where you started. I used to read of the spicy and scented East, but it was some time before we struck the brand you find in books of travel. True, we had found a variety of "scents" in the land of Rameses, but they weren't the kind of thing you'd invite your latest girl to inhale—although they were all fairly "spicy," and typically Eastern. Cairo has its full share; in fact, it bubbles over in parts, and yet it was in Cairo that I ran the travel-book's own particular to earth. Reader, were you ever in the Native Bazaar in Cairo? If you weren't, take my tip and pay it a visit the first time you happen to slide Eastward. You'll not regret having done so. But—a word in your ear—don't carry more than, say, £1000 in your pocket, for you'll spend every piastre you can lay hands on before they let you go, and you'll blue the cash without caring a well-known adjective where the next cheque is coming from. The entrance to the Bazaar is far from imposing. I toddled in by way of a row of butchers' booths and fruit-sellers' stalls, to find myself transplanted straight into a scene from the Arabian Nights Entertainments. I rubbed my eyes, opened them again—and lo! the Grand Vizier bowed before me (with a face like an Adelphi assassin—but this by the way, for I don't suppose it was his fault). He named his price, I offered him 200 per cent. less; for a moment he seemed on the point of fainting from surprise and indignation, then, recovering, he accepted my terms and proceeded to do the honours of the place in the capacity of guide. An amusing enough cut-throat he proved to be, too, although just a bit too fond of talking about his adventures with the ladies. Some of his yarns—— Ahem!