They passed several public and private buildings that would have done honor to any European city, and if it had not been for the natives walking in the streets, riding on donkeys, or now and then conducting a stately camel, they might easily have believed themselves far away from Egypt. Suddenly the scene changed; they passed the new theatre, where Ismail Pacha delighted to listen to European operas performed by European companies; they crossed the triangle known as the Square of Ibrahim Pacha, and containing a bronze statue of that fiery ruler; and by a transition like that of the change in a fairy spectacle, they were in one of the crowded and shaded streets of the City of the Caliphs. They had entered the "Mooskee," one of the widest and most frequented streets of the part of Cairo that has not succumbed to Western innovations, and retains enough of its Eastern character to remain unpaved.
The speed of their carriage was reduced, and a boy who had been riding at the side of the driver jumped down, and ran ahead shouting to clear the way. The boys thought they were travelling in fine style to have a footman to precede them, but the Doctor told them it was the custom of the country to have a runner, called a "syce," to go before every carriage, and clear the way for it. The syce carried a stick as the badge of his office, and when he was in the employ of an official he had no hesitation in striking right and left among those who were in the way. High officials and other dignitaries employed two of these runners, who kept step side by side, and were generally noticeable by the neatness of their dress. No matter how fast the horses go the syce will keep ahead of them, and he does not seem at all fatigued after a run that would take the breath out of an American.
They met other carriages; they met camels and donkeys with riders on their backs, or bearing burdens of merchandise, and they passed through crowds of people, in which there were many natives and some Europeans. The balconies of the houses projected over the street, and in some places almost excluded the sunlight, while their windows were so arranged that a person within was entirely concealed from the view of those without. The boys observed that the carving on the windows revealed a vast amount of patience on the part of the workmen that executed it, and they wondered if all the windows of Cairo were like those they were passing. Some of the walls were cracked and broken, as though threatening to fall; but the windows appeared so firmly fixed in their places that they would stay where they were when the rest of the building had tumbled.