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National Geographic : 1960 May
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Karachi: Turbans, veils, and a state carriage T HE TAIL GATE flipped down as our truck lurched forward. Losing my balance, I tumbled out headfirst onto the pavement. Films and lenses rolled down the street. I looked up: Six black horses clattered toward me. Clutch ing my cameras, I scurried into the gutter just in time to photograph Mr. Eisenhower as his carriage rumbled by (left). This was my introduction to Pakistan. The President's first moments in this young Asian country, though more dig nified, were no less exciting. From his open car he waved to cheering Pathan tribesmen wearing baggy white trousers, long-tailed white shirts, and faded turbans. Had he looked closely, the President could have seen black-veiled Moslem women in purdah-se clusion-peering at him through curtained lat tices; these women dress in burqas - shapeless, head-to-toe gowns with tiny eyehole slits. Certainly Mr. Eisen hower saw a unique wel come of bright saris-long scarflike garments of red, blue, green, and yellow flying from lines strung atop orange-tiled roofs. He visited Moslem ref ugees who had come to Pakistan from Hindu In dia and waved to the skin ny, naked little boys, the toothless old women racked with disease, and the barefoot men draped in rags. It is for these people that Pakistan's President Mohammed Ayub Khan is rushing to completion his United States-financed housing development. In Karachi the two Presidents climbed aboard the state carriage-a scar let-and-gold-trimmed, 605 black horse-drawn coach. A horde of Pakistanis jam-packed the streets yell ing, "Ike zindabad, Ike zindabad!" (Long live Ike!). Modern Karachi women waved U. S. flags. Men, clad in pajamalike cotton trousers and Western white shirts, clung to window bars, dangled from high bal conies, and shinnied up street-light poles for a better view. From his goatskin canteen a Pakistani vendor (below) peddled water to thirsty crowds waiting under the scorching sun to cheer the President.
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