The translator of the most famous version of the Arabian Nights was also a notable adventurer. In 1852 he combined all his skills to trek, in the disguise of a dervish to Alexandria, Cairo and Suez and on to the Islamic holy cities of Medina and Mecca. The notes he made reveal as much about the colonialist's view of the people of the Middle East as they do about Islam. Published by Dover Publications (New York) in two volumes.
Here is an excerpt from chapter 5, "The Ramazan", in which Burton describes the street sounds of Cairo:
Returning to the Moslem quarter, you are bewildered by its variety of sounds. Everyone talks, and talking here is always in extremes, either in a whisper, or in a scream; gesticulation excites the lungs, and strangers cannot pursuade themselves that men so converse without being or becoming furious. All the street cries, too, are in the soprano key. "In thy protection! in thy protection!" shouts a Fellah peasant to a sentinel, who is flogging him towards the station-house, followed by a tail of women, screaming, "Yá Gháratí - yá Dahwatí - yá Hasratí - yá Nadáma tí - O my calamity! O my shame!" The boys have elected a Pasha, whom they are conducting in procession, with wisps of straw for Mash'als, or cressets, and outrunners, all huzzaing with ten-schoolboy power. "O thy right! O thy left! O thy face! O thy heel! O thy back, thy back!" cries the panting footman, who, huge torch on shoulder, runs before the grandee's carriage; "Bless the Prophet and get out of the way!" "O Allah bless him!" respond the good Moslems, some shrinking up to the walls to avoid the stick, others rushing across the road, so as to give themselves every chance of being knocked down. The donkey boy beats his ass with a heavy palm-cudgel, - he fears no treadmill here, - cursing him at the top of his voice for a "pander," a "Jew," a "Christian," and a "son of the One-eyed, whose portion is Eternal Punishment." "O chick pease! O pips!" sings the vendor of parched grains, rattling the unsavoury load in his basket. "Out of the way, and say 'There is one God,'" pants the industrious water-carrier, laden with a skin, fit burden for a buffalo. "Sweet-water, and gladden thy soul, O lemonade!" pipes the seller of that luxury, clanging his brass cups together. Then come the beggars, intensely Oriental. "My supper is in Allah's hands, my supper is in Allah's hands! whatever thou givest, that will go with thee!" chaunts the old vagrant, whose wallet perhaps contains more provision than the basket of many a respectable shopkeeper. "Na'al abúk - rucse thy father - O brother of a naughty sister!" is the response of some petulant Greek to the touch of the old man's staff. "The grave is darkness, and good deeds are its lamp!" cry the bystanders, when the obstinate "bint" (daughter) of sixty years siezes their hands, and will not let go without extorting a farthing. "Bring the sweet" (i.e. fire), "and take the full," (i.e., empty cup), euphonistically cry the long-moustached, fierce-browed Arnauts to the coffee-house keeper, who stands by them charmed by the rhyming repartee that flows so readily from their lips.
"Hanien," may it be pleasant to thee! is the signal for encounter.
"Thou drinkest for ten," replies the other, instead of returning the usual religious salutation.
"I am the cock and thou art the hen!" is the rejoinder, - a tart one.
"Nay, I am the thick one and thou art the thin!" resumes the first speaker, and so on till they come to equivoques which will not bear a literal English translation.
And sometimes, high above the hubbub, rises the melodious voice of the blind mu'ezzin, who, from his balcony in the beetling tower rings forth, "Hie ye to devotion! Hie ye to salvation." And (at morning-prayer time) he adds: "Devotion is better than sleep! Devotion is better than sleep!" Then good Moslems piously stand up, and mutter, previous to prayer, "Here I am at Thy call, O Allah! here I am at Thy call!"