[p.79]Fitar!" fast-breaking! fast-breaking! shout the people, and a hum of joy rises from the silent city. Your acute ears waste not a moment in conveying the delightful intelligence to your parched tongue, empty stomach, and languid limbs. You exhaust a pot full of water, no matter its size. You clap hurried hands[FN#9] for a pipe; you order coffee; and provided with these comforts, you sit down, and calmly contemplate the coming pleasures of the evening. Poor men eat heartily at once. The rich break their fast with a light meal,-a little bread and fruit, fresh or dry, especially water-melon, sweetmeats, or such digestible dishes as "Muhallabah,"-a thin jelly of milk, starch, and rice-flour. They then smoke a pipe, drink a cup of coffee or a glass of sherbet, and recite the evening prayers; for the devotions of this hour are delicate things, and while smoking a first pipe after sixteen hours' abstinence, time easily slips away. Then they sit down to the Fatur (breakfast), the meal of the twenty-four hours, and eat plentifully, if they would avoid illness. There are many ways of spending a Ramazan evening. The Egyptians have a proverb, like ours of the Salernitan school: [p.80]"After Al-Ghada rest, if it be but for two moments: After Al-Asha[FN#10] walk, if it be but two steps." The streets are now crowded with a good-humoured throng of strollers; the many bent on pleasure, the few wending their way to Mosque, where the Imam recites "Tarawih" prayers.[FN#11] They saunter about, the accustomed pipe in hand, shopping, for the stalls are open till a late hour; or they sit in crowds at the coffee-house entrance, smoking Shishas,[FN#12] (water-pipes), chatting, and listening to story-tellers, singers and itinerant preachers. Here a bare-footed girl trills and quavers, accompanied by a noisy tambourine and a "scrannel pipe" of abominable discordance, in honour of a perverse saint whose corpse insisted upon being buried inside some respectable man's dwelling-house.[FN#13] The scene reminds you strongly of the Sonneurs of Brittany and the Zampognari from the Abruzzian Highlands bagpiping before the Madonna. There a tall, gaunt Maghrabi displays upon a square yard of