tariya and Heliopolis. Near the former place is an ancient gnarled
sycamore, under which, so tradition says, the Holy Family rested in
their flight to Egypt. The present tree was planted in 1672, but the
credulous still believe it to be a direct descendant of the original
one. A fine spring which flows in the vicinity is also supposed to
have lost its natural brackish taste on account of the infant Jesus
having been bathed in it. A half-mile farther on is Heliopolis, the old
City of the Sun. It is now marked by the solitary obelisk, which alone
remains to remind us of a past that stretches untold centuries back of
the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 640; and of a city that was the exponent
of the most ancient civilization of the world.

[Illustration: _The obelisk marking the site of Heliopolis_]

The obelisk is the oldest Egyptian one known; it is of red granite,
sixty-six feet in height, although it seems lower on account of the mass
of debris at the base, and is inscribed with hieroglyphics. There remain
a few granite blocks of the temple, designated the House of Ra, whose
priests were so learned as to have attracted Plato when a student, to
have drawn Herodotus into discussion, and to have laid the foundation of
Moses' wisdom.

Heliopolis has been the scene of many stirring events, the victory of
the Turks over the Mamelukes occurring there in 1517, while in 1800
General Kleber successfully led the French forces against the Turks. The
memory of the active past serves to emphasize the present solitude of
the place.

A favorite resort of the Cairo folk is the island of Gezireh; here a
long avenue of lebbek trees furnishes a fashionable promenade, while
games of golf, tennis, cricket, and polo, together with the races, are
a constant source of attraction. The once famous palace of Gezireh (the
scene of great festivities at the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869) is
now turned into a popular hotel; its grounds slope down to the Nile,
where dahabiyehs are sometimes anchored; an inspection of one of these,
the _Bedouin_, excited our admiration.

The time of our stay was drawing to a close, and Cairo was again to
become "memory" with a past stretching back into centuries without
number. Egypt has a human history that is almost appalling to the
thoughtful mind; this limitless stretch of time may, in part, explain
the peculiar, indefinable charm that Cairo has upon the imagination of
the beholder, thus winning for herself th