The orderly street crowd became a shared topos in Western and Egyptian writing

Evidence

The question of the crowd has already been mentioned in Egyptian accounts of journeys to Europe. What was remarkable about Paris or Marseilles was not only the layout of the buildings and the shops but the disciplined, industrious manner of the individual in the busy streets. ‘Each person was occupied with his own business, proceeding on his way, taking care not to harm or interfere with anyone else.’ Such descriptions are reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘Man in the crowd’, who observed from his café window how ‘by far the greater number of those who went by had a satisfied, businesslike demeanour, and seemed to be thinking only of making their way through the press. Their brows were knit and their eyes rolled quickly; when pushed against by fellow-wayfarers they evinced no symptom of impatience, but adjusted their clothes and hurried on.’ The crowd in the street, in fact, became a common topos in both Western and Egyptian writing. ‘No subject’, observed Benjamin, ‘was more entitled to the attentions of nineteenth-century writers.’ — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 367

Categorization

• XREF: Ties to discussion of how colonized observers perceived European urban discipline—relevant to existing notes on orientalist gazes and reversed observation in The Reluctant Fundamentalist.