HOW KITTY WAS LOST IN A TURKISH BAZAAR.

By Sara Keables Hunt.

Kitty was a pretty little girl, with gray, laughing eyes, and a dimple in each cheek; but from the time when she first commenced to toddle alone she began to be dangerously fond of running away from home. Let a door be ajar ever so little and out pattered the tiny feet into the streets of the crowded city and all sorts of dangers. Papa and mamma had long consultations of what should be done to correct this fault, while Aunt Martha, looking over her spectacles, timidly suggested a little birch tea; but mamma would not listen to that. Kitty was too small for any such bitter dose yet, and papa, who rather admired Aunt Martha’s suggestion, declared finally that his wife must settle the matter herself—he “didn’t know how to train a girl.”

So Kitty, left to an indulgent mother, went on her way, and hardly a day passed but the cry went from cellar to attic, “Kitty is gone!” Nurses without number came and went; they could never “stand Miss Kitty’s strange ways.”

The little one had reached her fifth year without any serious injury, notwithstanding her unfortunate habit, when there came a time of great anxiety in their home, for her mamma was ill, growing paler and weaker every day. The physicians suggested a winter in Egypt, and a trip up the Nile; so, one bright October day, the family, consisting of the father and mother, with Kitty and her nurse, sailed away from New York in a steamer bound for Liverpool. Kitty was delighted with the novelty of everything she saw on this grand trip. She did not once attempt to run away during the whole of the long journey to Egypt, though all the time, and especially in Liverpool, Maggie never failed to keep her “under her eye.”

On a bright, warm November afternoon they sailed into the harbor of Alexandria, and Kitty held tightly to Maggie’s hand in open-mouthed astonishment at the novelty of the scene. Vessels of all sizes and descriptions thronged the harbor, carrying crews from many strange nations—Arabs with long flowing robes and swarthy skins, black Nubians and portly Turks, all screaming, apparently at the top of their voices. Kitty’s mamma had read to her little girl some stories from the “Arabian Nights,” and now, as they approached this eastern land, they mingled curiously in her little brain. They were not long in landing, and as they drove to the hotel on the Grand Square, Kitty fairly gave herself up to staring about the streets. Here came a file of tall camels laden with merchandise, stalking along with silent tread; there rode a fat Turk on a very small donkey; then followed several ladies riding upon donkeys, and each wearing the invariable street costume of Egyptian ladies—a black silk mantle, with a white muslin face-veil which conceals all the features except the eyes. Kitty admired the Syce men running before the carriages to clear the way, and as she looked at their spangled vests and white, long sleeves waving backward while they ran, she inwardly wished it had been her position in life to be a Syce. What could be more delightful and exciting!

Then there were the palm-trees and the water-carriers, with their goat-skins of water slung over their shoulders, and the bazaars—all most interesting to our travelers. But Kitty was too young to feel more than a dim surprise at the objects around her. She knew nothing, of course, of the history of Alexandria, once the first city in the world, where Euclid presided over the school in mathematics, and Aristotle studied and gave instruction. Here stood those vast libraries founded by Ptolemy Soter, which were subsequently destroyed, and here St. Mark presided over the church of Africa. Yet all this was unknown to Kitty, who was much more interested in the good dinner set before her at the hotel, with its dessert of fresh dates and great luscious grapes, and the comfortable bed which received her tired little form that night.

“Maggie,” said the invalid mother the next morning, “don’t let Kitty go out of your sight. I’m so nervous about her.”

“Oh no, mum!” replied Maggie, re-assuringly. “Shure and I’ll watch her like a cat does a mouse,” and the good Irish girl kept her word, so that the two days spent in Alexandria were disturbed by no frights concerning Kitty. At last they were off again, this time in the cars for Cairo. On, on they went, villages on either hand, and such funny houses, such as Kitty had never seen before, and mud hovels with domed roofs, but without windows and often without doors.

“Shure,” said Maggie, eyeing these rude dwelling-places with great disdain, “it’s glad I am that me mother was not an Egyptian, to bring me up in a poor hoot loike thim.”

For a time Kitty gazed wonderingly on the swiftly passing scenes, but by and by the little head drooped, the eyelids closed, and Maggie took the sleeping child into her lap, and let her sleep there until they reached the railroad station at Cairo and stepped out into the din and confusion of the motley crowd. With a bewildered look Kitty leaned back in the carriage which conveyed them to the New Hotel, opposite the Esbekiyah Gardens; then, as they approached the entrance, she looked up at the great building with its many balconies and columns, and exclaimed: “It looks just like a big church organ, mamma.”

Many exciting days followed before they left for their trip up the Nile. The bright sunshine of that cloudless sky appeared to revive the invalid. It seemed, she said, as if she could feel it warm in her lungs and heart, and she brightened so in the change that they all gathered hope and courage, and went about on merry little trips to the many objects of interest around Cairo, before their floating home was ready for their departure. Kitty made friends of everybody; and had funny pantomime conversations with the Arab waiter who took charge of their rooms, examining curiously the long blue robe which he wore, and the red fez with its black tassel on his head. “It’s awful funny,” she said, “to see people calling the waiters by clapping their hands instead of ringing a bell; I think it’s a very strange country!” So saying she would walk up and down the long rooms with her hands folded behind her as she had seen her papa do.

Such donkey rides as Kitty and her papa had over the hard, smooth road leading to the pyramids, with the long shadows of the acacias before them! And then, how she teased him to buy a donkey for her to take to America! But he only smiled in reply, saying, in true Arab fashion, “Bookrer” (to-morrow).

They spent one day in the bazaars buying all sorts of beautiful sashes, in brilliant colors, of Turkish embroidery. One bore the Sultan’s name in the Turkish language, worked with gold threads, and another had the motto, “God is good,” worked in blue and silver. Then there were shawls “perfectly lovely,” said the little New York girl, boxes of sandal-wood that she longed to be smelling of continually, a pair of slippers and a gold-embroidered smoking cap to be taken home to Uncle Harry, and a beautiful cloak and table-cover for Aunt Martha.

But, alas! this visit awoke Kitty’s long-slumbering propensity, and she determined to watch for a good opportunity and go alone to that wonderful bazaar. The opportunity soon came. It was just after breakfast. Maggie had gone to the laundry with some of Kitty’s white dresses. Papa was talking with a French gentleman about New York, while mamma was yet sleeping. “What a splendid chance!” whispered Kitty, and catching up her sailor hat she sped away through a side entrance and down the Mouski, which is the Broadway of Cairo. It is a narrow, crowded street, with tall houses, every story projecting a little over the one under it, so that if you should lean from a window of the upper floor you might shake hands with your opposite neighbor. Kitty’s bump of locality was pretty well developed, and she found the way to the bazaar without any trouble. In her chubby hand was clasped a little gold five-franc piece, which had been given her the previous day, and visions of glittering treasures which should be bought with that tiny gold piece floated before her eyes. She hurried on by the quaint fountains which are placed at the corners of the bazaars, to cheer those water-worshiping people, and soon found herself amid the charms and mysteries of the bazaar, and in front of the little shops like bow-windows, with their owners sitting cross-legged in the midst of their goods, smoking and waiting indifferently for a customer. Walking toward one of these turbaned merchants, Kitty said, with a queer attempt at dignity, “Please show me some shawls.”

But this clearly spoken sentence was all lost on the foreign merchant, to whom English was an unknown language.

“Anni mush ariff,” said the man, puffing away at his pipe, and deliberately settling himself among his cozy cushions, as if for a long and dreamy nap.

Kitty, of course, did not understand Arabic, and the words, which really signified, “I don’t understand,” sounded to her unpracticed ears like “I am a sheriff!” a word which was always associated in the little runaway’s mind with policemen, a class of persons who were to Kitty objects of tyranny and terror.

“Oh, dear,” whispered Kitty, “if he is a sheriff, may be he’ll arrest me and lock me up.” So saying she fled from the presence of the astonished merchant, and darted round a corner through a motley crowd of donkeys, camels, and beggars blind and maimed. And now, her momentary fright over, she entered a still more narrow way, where were stalls of glittering diamonds set in every imaginable form, and gems of all sorts and sizes, arranged in brilliant order. Kitty forgot everything in her admiration. “I mean to buy a diamond pin. I just do!” she exclaimed, and, accosting the man, asked the price of a huge crescent of gems.

“Allah!” cried the man, rousing from his languor. And then, in his own language, he said to Kitty: “Little lady, where are you going? Are your papa and mamma gone?”

Kitty looked silently and wonderingly at the kind-hearted merchant a moment, and then her little mind began to realize that she was among a strange people who could not understand a word that she might say. The tears began to come in the gray eyes, and turning, she said, “I will go home.” But which way? Her little head grew bewildered, and, to crown all, an immense camel stalking along with silent tread nearly stepped on her little foot. She cried in earnest now, and the merchant kindly lifted her up beside him on a soft, Turkish rug, right in the midst of the flashing gems.

Quite a crowd had gathered now, listening eagerly while the man pictured in earnest language the position of the lost child. But none knew little Kitty; not a soul could speak to her in all that motley crowd of camel drivers, donkey boys, beggars, milkmen with their goats, merchants and dark-eyed women wrapped in their mantles and veils. There was none to help her. Suddenly, out from the crowd came a young Arab boy, one of those little fellows who carry about with them a vest full of snakes, exhibiting them for a living in front of hotels and other public places.

“Me know she!” he cried, as his eyes fell on the little girl sitting there on the rich Turkish carpet, her soft, golden hair floating around her, more beautiful than all the merchant’s gold and jewels.

The boy rapidly addressed the merchant, Kitty catching at the words, and trying in vain to understand them. They seemed to satisfy the merchant, however, and then the boy, pushing down a restless snake into its retreat, advanced to the troubled child.

“You Americano,” he said. “Me see you in New Hotel. You want see papa? Me tek you.”

Kitty, started up delighted; but at the sight of that inquisitive snake making its re-appearance from the boy’s pocket, she retreated and sat down again amid the jewels. The merchant laughed. “She likes my diamonds, Mahomet, better than your ugly reptiles.” Then, taking a little gold ring set with a small blue turquoise, he placed it on Kitty’s first finger and lifted her off the carpet, calling as he did so to a passing donkey boy, and giving him some hurried instructions. Kitty smiled her thanks for her pretty ring, and seeing the snake boy looking fiercely at the donkey boy, who had lifted her into the saddle, “Come, too,” she said, “you can talk, and this boy can’t.” So the two boys ran alongside of the donkey, watching carefully lest the little rider should fall; and very soon they emerged from the bazaar and were galloping along the Mouski.

Meantime, Kitty’s absence had been discovered at the hotel, and great excitement followed. Her mamma fainted, and Maggie wrung her hands in anxiety and despair. Her papa alone was cool and collected.

“She has run away so many times,” said he, quietly, “that I have no doubt she will come home safely, as always before.”

Nevertheless, he dispatched messengers without number here and there, and looked anxiously out into the streets for that dear little yellow head he so loved. It was nearly noon when he saw it—the bright sun glaring down on the tired little face under the sailor hat. He was going to be very stern as he lifted his naughty child from the saddle, but she looked so repentant, putting up her quivering lips for a forgiving kiss, that somehow his anger fled away and he gave her the pardoning caress. The two boys were sent away happy, with a generous baksheesh or present, and the next day Kitty’s father sought out the kind-hearted jewel merchant and bought many a gem from his choice collection. Among them was a locket for Kitty, in which he then placed his own and her mother’s picture.

“Kitty,” he said, gravely, as he hung the pretty thing about her neck, “when you are tempted to do wrong, open this locket, and think how it will pain two hearts that love you.“

“Papa,” said the repentant Kitty, “I never will run away again.”

And she kept her word. So it came to pass that our little heroine lost her evil propensity in the Turkish bazaar at Cairo.