Identifier: mentonecairocorf00wool (find matches)
Title: Mentone, Cairo and Corfu
Year: 1896 (1890s)
Authors: Woolson, Constance Fenimore, 1840-1894
Subjects:
Publisher: New York : Harper & Brothers
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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heir backs—when he sees them squatted in broaddaylight at the cafe, smoking the long pipes and slowlydrinking the Mocha coffee, it appears to him an inex-plicable idleness, an incurable self-indulgence. It isidleness, no doubt, but associations should not bemixed with the subject. To the American the littlecup of after-dinner coffee seems a luxury. He doesnot always stop to remember that Achmets coffee is,very possibly, all the dinner he is to have ; that it hasbeen preceded by nothing since daylight but a smallpiece of Egyptian bread, and that it will be followedby nothing before bedtime but a mouthful of beansor a lettuce-stalk. The daily rest is by no means takenalways at the cafe. Egyptians also take it at the baths,where, after the final douche, they spend half an hourin motionless ease. For those who have not the parasfor the cafe or the bath, the mosques offer their shadedcourts. When there is no time to seek another place,,the men take their rest wherever they are. One often
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211 sees them lying asleep, or apparently asleep, in theirbooths at the bazaars. The very beggars draw theirrags round them, cover their faces, and lie down closeto a wall in the crowded lanes. At the cafes, during another stage of the rest, gamesare played, the favorites being dominos, backgammon,and chess. Sometimes a story-teller entertains the cir-cle. He narrates the deeds of Antar and legends ofadventure; he also tells stories from the Bible, such asthe tale of the flood, or of Daniel in the den of lions.Sometimes he recites, in Arabic, the poems of OmarKhayyam. I sent my soul through the invisible,Some letter of that after-life to spell;And by-and-by my soul returned to me, And answered, I myself am heaven and hell! This verse of the Persian poet might be taken as themotto of kief; for if the heaven or hell of each per-son is simply the condition of his own mind, then ifhe is able every day to reduce his mind, even for a half-hour only, to a happy tranquillity which has forgott

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