For nearly a mile this busy business thoroughfare is lined on either side with shops of every possible description--houses of entertainment and variegated open stores, wine merchants, barbers’ shops, millinery stores, fancy goods; the windows gaily dressed, all aglow with bright colours and glittering ornaments. Elegantly dressed women and gentlemen, the _jeunesse dorée_ of the eastern cities, saunter to and fro. It seems as though a bit of Regent Street had been cut out and plumped down on the skirts of this semi-tropical city.
We turn a few steps out of this animated thoroughfare, and are in a perfect elysium; we feel as though we had turned our backs upon the world, and are already on our way to paradise--we forget all about the serpent. Although it is still spring-time, the thermometer reaches to 85°. They tell us that that is the maximum summer heat, and that such weather is most unusual at this early season. The heat that would be unendurable elsewhere is by no means oppressive here; we enjoy a stroll through the shady streets at midday. Though the sun is at its zenith, there is no hot glare of light anywhere, but a soft delicious breeze is blowing--an “east wind” they call it, but it bears no resemblance to the stormy virago who plays that _rôle_ in more northern latitudes, hurling down church steeples, playing bagatelle with the chimney-pots, and, worst of all, attacking with its biting breath poor helpless humanity. In vain mankind buttons its greatcoat, and clasps its warm furs round it, the east wind finds out its weakest place, and plays the devil’s own tune upon its naked nerves, racks its bones with rheumatic twinges, shooting neuralgic pains, making a target of the human body and hitting the bull’s eye every time. Driven out of the open streets, people creep in and cower down at their own fireside, but it follows them, it cannot be kept out by bolts and bars; as subtle and invisible as thought it steals down the throat, gives an evil touch to the bronchial tubes, wrings the liver with a cruel hand, and even spoils the temper, like a wicked old wretch as it is. One doesn’t so much mind facing the good honest blustering north wind, it is an open foe, and in some way you can defend yourself against it; but the east is a malicious insinuating enemy, it will attack you even in your bed before you have had time to put a woollen nightcap on. Here, however, it is soft and balmy, full of a spicy fragrance; it seems to come down new-born, straight from the gate of heaven, breathing the breath of angels, and laden with the soft airs of eternal spring. Who can tell? Perhaps as it grows older and travels onward it may gather evil by the way, absorb the miasmic exhalations from the earth and from the miseries and vices of mankind till its temper is spoilt, and it becomes as hard, cruel, and bitter as the east wind of our own land--which we must again meet presently. But here all is fresh and delightful. We don’t find in the face of the child the inborn sins of its manhood, so we revel in this balmy breeze, and give no thought to the east wind that may be afar off sweeping our native streets, holding our friends and our foes alike in its cruel grip.