eleven o'clock
There were the importunate street venders , the donkey boys begging and pulling at the clothing of the visitors , the pompous drivers of camels beseeching the visitors to try their `` ship of the desert ; '' tom-tom pounders , reed blowers , fakirs , child acrobat beggars , Mohammedans , Copts , Jews , Franks , Greeks , Armenians , Nubians , Soudanese , Arabs , Turks , and men and women from all over the Levant , all in the gorgeous apparel of the East , filling the booths or strolling about the street . They were the happiest lot of Orientals that ever got so far away from home . Drums were beating , camel drivers singing merry songs , and a curious medley of voices which the earth beneath them never heard before . At eleven o'clock somebody blew a strange kind of horn , which made the small boy almost kill himself in his frenzy to get near to see what it meant . Musicians mounted the camels and began grinding out music that was enough to frighten even a North American Indian to death . At the first glimpse of the camels a team of steady old horses , that probably were never frightened before , ran away with the gravel wagon which they had been patiently dragging along . Little Arabs and Soudanese ran ahead of the procession turning somersets and clapping their hands in hilarious glee .