which are held in large
_khans_ or storehouses, of two storeys and of considerable size. Access to
them is gained from the narrow lanes which usually surround them. The khans
often possess fine gateways. The principal bazaar, the Khan-el-Khalil,
marks the site of the tombs of the Fatimite caliphs.

_The Citadel and the Mosques._--Besides the citadel, the principal edifices
in the Arab quarters are the mosques and the ancient gates. The citadel or
El-Kala was built by Saladin about 1166, but it has since undergone
frequent alteration, and now contains a palace erected by Mehemet Ali, and
a mosque of Oriental alabaster (based on the model of the mosques at
Constantinople) founded by the same pasha on the site of "Joseph's Hall,"
so named after the prenomen of Saladin. The dome and the two slender
minarets of this mosque form one of the most picturesque features of Cairo,
and are visible from a great distance. In the centre is a well called
Joseph's Well, sunk in the solid rock to the level of the Nile. There are
four other mosques within the citadel walls, the chief being that of Ibn
Kalaun, built in A.D. 1317 by Sultan Nasir ibn Kalaun. The dome has fallen
in. After having been used as a prison, and, later, as a military
storehouse, it has been cleared and its fine colonnades are again visible.
The upper parts of the minarets are covered with green tiles. They are
furnished with bulbous cupolas. The most magnificent of the city mosques is
that of Sultan Hasan, standing in the immediate vicinity of the citadel. It
dates from A.D. 1357, and is celebrated for the grandeur of its porch and
cornice and the delicate stalactite vaulting which adorns them. The
restoration of parts of the mosque which had fallen into decay was begun in
1904. Besides it there is the mosque of Tulun (c. A.D. 879) exhibiting very
ancient specimens of the pointed arch; the mosque of Sultan El Hakim (A.D.
1003), the mosque el Azhar (the splendid), which dates from about A.D. 970,
and is the seat of a Mahommedan university; and the mosque of Sultan
Kalaun, which is attached to the hospital or madhouse (_muristan_) begun by
Kalaun in A.D. 1285. The whole forms a large group of buildings, now
partially in ruins, in a style resembling the contemporaneous medieval work
in Europe, with pointed arches in several orders. Besides the mosque proper
there is a second mosque containing the fine mausoleum of Kalaun. Adjacent
to the _muristan_ on the north is the tom