ground that looks gone to waste, near dingy and squat houses built
with grey bricks, seems less old than this mosque of Ibn-Tulun. For
its long facade is striped with white and apricot, and there are
lebbek-trees growing in its court near the two columns between which
if you can pass you are assured of heaven. But the mosque of Ibn-Tulun,
seen upon a sad day, makes a powerful impression, and from the summit of
its minaret you are summoned by the many minarets of Cairo to make the
pilgrimage of the mosques, to pass from the "broken arches" of these
Saracenic cloisters to the "Blue Mosque," the "Red Mosque," the mosques
of Mohammed Ali, of Sultan Hassan, of Kait Bey, of El-Azhar, and so on
to the Coptic church that is the silent centre of "old Cairo." It is
said that there are over four hundred mosques in Cairo. As I looked
down from the minaret of Ibn-Tulun, they called me through the mist
that blotted completely out all the surrounding country, as if it would
concentrate my attention upon the places of prayer during these holy
days when the pilgrims were crowding in to depart with the Holy Carpet.
And I went down by the staircase of the house, and in the mist I made my
pilgrimage.

As every one who visits Rome goes to St. Peter's, so every one who
visits Cairo goes to the mosque of Mohammed Ali in the citadel, a
gorgeous building in a magnificent situation, the interior of which
always makes me think of Court functions, and of the pomp of life,
rather than of prayer and self-denial. More attractive to me is the
"Blue Mosque," to which I returned again and again, enticed almost as by
the fascination of the living blue of a summer day.

This mosque, which is the mosque of Ibrahim Aga, but which is familiarly
known to its lovers as the "Blue Mosque," lies to the left of a
ramshackle street, and from the outside does not look specially
inviting. Even when I passed through its door, and stood in the court
beyond, at first I felt not its charm. All looked old and rough, unkempt
and in confusion. The red and white stripes of the walls and the arches
of the arcade, the mean little place for ablution--a pipe and a row of
brass taps--led the mind from a Neapolitan ice to a second-rate school,
and for a moment I thought of abruptly retiring and seeking more
splendid precincts. And then I looked across the court to the arcade
that lay beyond, and I saw the exquisite "love-color" of the marvellous
tiles that gives this mosque its