PICTURESQUE WORLD’S FAIR. AN ELABORATE COLLECTION OF COLORED VIEWS
Page 87 – EGYPTIAN SWORDSMEN
EGYPTIAN SWORDSMEN.— Among the attractions of a Street in Cairo were a number of swordsmen, some of them very expert in their profession. Their weapons were not of the style in use among Europeans and Americans, but resembled Japanese swords somewhat and had no guard above the hand grip. The blades were not, however, used much in a defensive way, that being left to the small circular buckler or target held by each combatant in the left hand. Given claymores instead of the odd blades they used, and the Egyptian swordsmen would have been equipped very much as were the Highlanders at Flodden Field or Bannockburn. The fencing was rather of the dramatic sort, there being consider-able leaping about and gesticulation, but there is no question that, in a bout with weapons of such sort, the Egyptians would have given the ordinary swordsmen of other countries at least sufficient to occupy their earnest attention. The illustration shows the but mildly bloodthirsty gentlemen on guard preliminary to amusing a mixed audience of men, women and children from everywhere. The surroundings are hardly in keeping with the scene, the Temple of Luxor certainly never having been erected originally as a theater for sword play, but in Cairo Street they were not particular about the fitness of things. The ancient, the medieval and the modern jostled each other there.