Cairo is probably one of the noisiest towns in the world but it is amusing, if not interesting, to endeavour to sort out some ofthe sounds so familiar in Cairo's streets. The main thoroughfaresare crowded with hawkers of every description; as one sits in acafe, one is offered articles of the most extraordinary variety by them, hair-pins and oranges, daffodils and bananas, sand-paper and flywhisks, sausages and sadlery, the latest editions of French and Arabic novels, copies of works on Quranic Exegesis and the Traditions, motor car tyres and flea-powder.