Note 22 — Chapter I

Note 22.—Description of Shops. In Eastern cities, most of the great thoroughfare-streets, and many others, have a row of shops along each side, not communicating with the superstructures; which latter are divided into separate lodgings, inhabited by different families, and seldom by the persons who rent the shops beneath. These streets are called, in Arabic, "Sooḳs;" and are generally termed by us, "Bázárs." A whole street of this description, or a portion of such a street, commonly contains only or chiefly shops appropriated to a particular trade; and is called the Sooḳ of that trade. In general, the shop is a small recess or cell, about six or seven feet high, and between three and four feet wide, the floor of which is even with the top of a raised seat of stone or brick, called "maṣṭabah," between two and three feet high, and about the same in breadth; upon which the shopkeeper usually sits.149 The front of the shop is furnished with shutters; which, when closed, at night, are secured by a wooden lock. Several of the engravings in this work will convey a better notion of shops of different kinds than a more detailed description.