262 WITH THE CAMEL CORPS UP THE NILE.

buildings arid architectural beauties, there were none ; a white plaster-faced barracks, a tumble-down old mud mosque, the palace of the Mudir (also made of mud), and a three-roomed white house belonging to an influential citizen and used as headquarters, were the only buildings that raised themselves above the level of the sea of mud huts of which the town was composed.

The main attraction was, of course, the bazaar, which was an unusually good one for the place.

In it you could get every variety of fifth-rate French and Manchester cottons, cutlery, gimcrack stationery, and gaudy trash, but hardly any native work whatever. The chief things noticeable about the place were a very fine old fig-tree, and a greater tendency to lying and cheating among the merchants than anywhere else in Egypt, which is saying a good deal. There were two short covered places, and a small three-sided square giving on to a sort of Covent Garden market (I can't explain it any better), all full of shops a la Eastern, and a few stray ones besides, the whole thing covering