the citadel and the
mosque which he had made for his last repose, are perched like eagles'
nests on a spur of the mountain chain of Arabia, the Mokattam, which
stretches out like a promontory towards the basin of the Nile, and
brings quite close to Cairo, so as almost to overhang it, a little of
the desert solitude. And so the eye can see from far off and from
all sides the mosque of Mehemet Ali, with the flattened domes of its
cupolas, its pointed minarets, the general aspect so entirely Turkish,
perched high up, with a certain unexpectedness, above the Arab town
which it dominates. The prince who sleeps there wished that it should
resemble the mosques of his fatherland, and it looks as if it had been
transported bodily from Stamboul.

A short trot brings us up to the lower gate of the old fortress; and, by
a natural effect, as we ascend, all Cairo which is near there, seems to
rise with us: not yet indeed the endless multitude of its houses; but at
first only the thousands of its minarets, which in a few seconds point
their high towers into the mournful sky, and suggest at once that an
immense town is about to unfold itself under our eyes.

Continuing to ascend--past the double rampart, the double or triple
gates, which all these old fortresses possess, we penetrate at length
into a large fortified courtyard, the crenellated walls of which shut
out our further view. Soldiers are on guard there--and how unexpected
are such soldiers in this holy place of Egypt! The red uniforms and the
white faces of the north: Englishmen, billeted in the palace of Mehemet
Ali!

The mosque first meets the eye, preceding the palace. And as we
approach, it is Stamboul indeed--for me dear old Stamboul--which
is called to mind; there is nothing, whether in the lines of its
architecture or in the details of its ornamentation, to suggest the
art of the Arabs--a purer art it may be than this and of which many
excellent examples may be seen in Cairo. No; it is a corner of Turkey
into which we are suddenly come.

Beyond a courtyard paved with marble, silent and enclosed, which serves
as a vast parvis, the sanctuary recalls those of Mehemet Fatih or the
Chah Zade: the same sanctified gloom, into which the stained glass of
the narrow windows casts a splendour as of precious stones; the same
extreme distance between the enormous pillars, leaving more clear space
than in our churches, and giving to the domes the appearance of being
held up by