Part 2 (1/2)

People were there dressed in every variety of colour. Egyptian ladies, enveloped from head to foot in blue silk mantles and white veils, which left nothing but their eyes to be seen, were riding on high donkeys, preceded by their attendants. Then there were Mamelukes, in their dresses of richly braided cloth; Copts, in dark turbans; Mecca Arabs, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes, and heads wreathed with folds of snowy muslin; majestic Mograbbyns, in their white burnouses; Caireen merchants, in silken robes.

And the noise! Such shouting, screaming, pus.h.i.+ng! Donkey-boys and others, each trying to make the best path for his own animal through the crowd of horses, a.s.ses, camels, dromedaries, which filled the narrow streets.

We threaded our way to the southern gate of the city, called Bab Zuweyleh.

”What are those people doing?” Hugh asked.

He pointed to some people who were resting their heads against the hinges of a large iron-bound door, fastened back to the wall. Mohammed told us that these people had had headaches, and were waiting for them to be charmed away by the good spirits who dwelt behind the door. He showed us that the door was covered with metal plates, and that every crevice of them was full of nails, driven in by persons who had had headache, that they might be cured. Besides the nails, a great number of teeth had been crammed in by persons who had suffered from toothache.

Their faith is a lesson to us, whose hearts are less ready to trust in the G.o.d who reigneth in the heavens, than the hearts of these poor heathen are to trust the G.o.ds of their imagination.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CURE FOR THE TOOTHACHE.]

From the gate Bab Zuweyleh we went to the citadel. Here we were to see the palace of Saladin.

”What! the great Saladin who fought with Richard Coeur de Lion?” Lucy asked.

”Yes, that very Saladin.”

”Delightful! the next best thing to seeing Saladin himself,” cried Hugh.

Hugh and Lucy were impatient to see a real palace like those in old eastern tales; we all felt a thrill of excitement, expecting something of Oriental grandeur. Great was our disappointment! There was nothing left of the renowned Saladin's palace except a few grand fragments of its granite pillars, and some blocks of granite covered with hieroglyphics. We found another memorial of him in ”Joseph's well,”

which is also in the citadel, and is now generally considered to have been called after the great Saracen, whose name was Yussuf Salah-ed-Deen, and not after the patriarch Joseph.

From the gloomy remains of Saladin's palace we went to the palace of the Viceroy, the windows of which look into a beautiful garden. From the terrace we had a magnificent view. Cairo, with its domes and minarets; then, the tombs of the Caliphs; beyond them, the broad, silent Nile; beyond it again, the eye rested on the sands of the desert and on the long line of pyramids which loomed in the distance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOSQUE.]

We next saw the new mosque, built by Mohammed Ali, of beautifully veined alabaster. And, last of all, the court where the Mamelukes were ma.s.sacred by Mohammed Ali in 1811. Here Mohammed pointed out to us the spot at which Emir Bey took his famous leap.

Hugh and Lucy begged to hear the whole story; but it was too long to tell at that moment and was put off till evening.

We then returned to the hotel for lunch, and in the afternoon went to s...o...b..a to see the pacha's country palace.

Our road lay through a beautiful avenue of sycamores and acacias, which interlaced their boughs over our heads, so that we seemed to be in a bower of green. The palace is small, and the gardens are the sight really worth seeing. There is a great variety in them; terraces, covered walls, labyrinths, and bowers. But the great sight is the kiosk with its large reservoir of water.

”See!” Lucy exclaimed, ”see! the water comes through those animals'

mouths.”

”They are crocodiles, Lucy,” Hugh said; ”marble crocodiles; and look at the arcade. Do let us walk all round.”

We did so. It was a charming arcade: on one side the water, on the other the gardens, from which the most fragrant perfumes filled the air around us.

”It is like fairy-land,” said Lucy, as she danced along the arcade.

”The young lady is delighted with it now,” said Mohammed; ”but she would think it much more beautiful if she could see it when the lamps are lighted and the fountains are playing.”

”When can we see that?” Lucy asked.