Looking down across the Fayoum, 1836 | Walking Through Egypt

Looking down across the Fayoum, 1836 
Charles Rochfort Scott

Fayoum

A narrow gorge at its eastern extremity connects the Fayoum with the valley of t e Nile, but, on every other side, it is bounded by arid sandy mountains. The bottom of this singular basin is nearly flat, and in great part covered with plantations of olive, fig, and other fruit trees; these present a remarkable contrast to the other cultivated plains of Egypt, on which, save the melancholy palms that shelter the villages scattered over them, there is not a tree to break the wavy horizon of com and cotton.

The surface of the Fayoum is not, however, less richly carpeted from being thus screened and overshadowed. Vines, rose bushes, and indigo, grow luxuriantly beneath the shade of the olive groves; whilst flax, cotton, and the sugar-cane, thrive well in the more open grounds; but for the last named the climate of Upper Egypt is better suited. The rose water of Fayoum is much and deservedly esteemed.

This province owes its great productiveness its existence perhaps to the Birket Keroun, or Lake Moeris, which, receiving the flood of the Nile, by means of a branch canal from the Bahr Yousef, retains a sufficient quantity of water to irrigate the circumjacent country for a considerable time after the inundation of the river has subsided.

A second pyramid stands (where the valley of the Fayoum may be said to commence) about five miles to the east at Illaoum. The gorge, which serves as the link, connecting the cultivation of the Fayoum with that of the valley of the Nile, is about four miles wide.

The area of the Fayoum, according to the best modem geographers, is but six hundred square miles, of which Lake Moeris covers about one hundred and eighty. According to Herodotus, the lake alone was in his time three thousand six hundred stadia (nearly four hundred and fifty miles) in circumference, and two hundred cubits deep!

This immense lake he states to have been entirely a work of human labour, and he naturally became very curious to learn what had been done with the earth that had been excavated in its formation, which he at length satisfied himself had been thrown into the Nile.

Let not those, therefore, who pinning their faith to the Greek geographer believe that the Delta is a gift of the Nile, wonder what country furnished the soil to fill up the huge gulph. Herodotus’s Lake Moeris solves the mystery, for it alone would have supplied sufficient earth to cover the whole Delta with a much thicker layer than is to be found elsewhere.

Buckingham, a well-read merchant naval captain, wrote in his journal of his visit to the Fayoum and four decades later offered this beautiful description to the world in his autobiography.

Read more »

A Land Created, c. 1000 | Fayoum - Walking Through Egypt

A Land Created, c. 1000
al-Muqaddasi

Fayoum

The Nile used not to reach to al-Fayyum, so the people complained to Joseph peace be on him about it. He built a dam in the river, and at the bottom of it he installed valves, inducts of glass. The dam retained the water, so that it rose until it reached the ground of al-Fayyum, and irrigated it. At present it is the most watered area in Egypt do you not see that there are the farms of rice, or do you not notice the burden of its land taxes, the greatness of its income? During its flood the water goes over the top of the dam; so sometimes they allow the boats to go over with the flow, and they glide down safely, though sometimes they capsize and turn upside down. When the people no longer need the water, the valves are opened and the water subsides.

All the wells that are close to the Nile are sweet, while those some distance away from it are disagreeable. The best baths are those by the shore. Entering through the town are canals from which they draw their water by means of water wheels. On the Nile itself also are numerous wheels which irrigate the gardens when the river is low. The water at al-Fayyum is unhealthy because it flows over the rice farms.

Read more »

Celebrating on High, 1843 | Walking Through Egypt

Celebrating on High, 1843
Dr. Richard Lepsius

Great Pyramids

Yesterday, the 15th October, was our king’s birthday, and I had selected this day for the first visit to the Great Pyramids. We would there, with a few friends, commemorate our King and our Fatherland in a joyous festival. . . .

The morning was beautiful beyond description, fresh and festive. We rode in a long procession through the yet quiet city, and through the green avenues and gardens which are now laid out before it. Wherever, almost, that we met with new and well carried out works, Ibrahim Pasha was named to us as their originator. He seems to be doing much in all parts of Egypt for the embellishment and improvement of the country.

[The German party arrived at the Pyramids and pitched a tent] About thirty Bedouins, in the meanwhile, gathered around us, and waited for the moment when we should ascend the Pyramids, in order to raise us, with their strong brown arms, up the steps, which are between three and four feet high. Scarcely had the signal for departure been given, than immediately each of us was surrounded by several Bedouins, who dragged us up the rough, steep path to the summit, as in a whirlwind. A few minutes later and our flag was unfurled on the summit of the oldest and highest of human works that is known, and we greeted the Prussian eagle with three loyal cheers to our king. Flying towards the south, the eagle turned his crowned head towards our home in the north, from which a refreshing wind blew, and diverted the rays of the mid-day sun from off us. We also looked homewards, and each one thought aloud, or silently in his heart, of those who loving, and beloved, he had left behind.

After a prolonged tour around Europe and the Middle East, Mark Twain and his party reached Egypt and, on their way to the Pyramids, made their presence loudly felt.

Read more »

Lifted to the Summit | Walking Through Egypt

Lifted to the Summit, c. 1865
Mrs. M. Carey

Great Pyramid Of Giza

Three Bedouins accompanied me Abraham and two companions one as hearty as himself, the other rather too old for the work, as was soon proved by his remaining behind before we reached the top, as soon as he thought that his services could be dispensed with. For this he incurred considerable raillery from his companions, who spoke of him just as you might speak of a worn out horse “old fellow,” “good for nothing,” etc.

Each of the first two guides seized one of my wrists and held them with so tight a grasp that I was obliged to remonstrate upon the subject and to show them the red marks which were appearing in consequence, upon which they condescended slightly to loosen their grip. They first mounted one of the great steps themselves, while the third guide, remaining on a level with me, placed two more hands at my waist, and assisted me to a succession of springs varying from three to five feet in height. Thus by a series of jumps the ascent of the Pyramid was accomplished in a far easier manner than I had anticipated. Cousin Phil and Selina moved to a distance to watch me. They said I looked like a doll as I was lifted up by the Bedouins from one giant step to the other; they could not hear the song with which the guides aided their efforts and mine as we proceeded; but here it is set to a kind of boatman’s chorus, to which they sang it.

• Solo: Plenty backshish, lady!
• Chorus: Haylee, Haylee, sah!
• Solo: To take you up to the top!
• Chorus: Haylee, Haylee, sah! [interspersed between each solo statement]
• Solo: Custom of every nation!
• Ah! Bravo, bravo, lady!
• Don’t tell this man what you give me!
• Chorus: (not knowing English) Haylee, Haylee, sah!
• Give it to me myself!
• Now stop and take rest, lady!

The ascent occupied twenty minutes, and 1 rested five times on the way, to take breath for the next climb and to look around me and remember where I was. A sixth pause would have been more to my taste, but the wary guide, suspecting signs of approaching fatigue, said, “No, lady, you must go to the top now.”

I felt he was right though I doubted my powers to proceed. The old guide had halted at the fourth station, and, to say the truth, he was no loss, for although his assistance was of the greatest use at first, he had by this time become fatigued himself, and instead of jumping me up he only assisted in weighing me down. I jumped much better without him now, and the blocks towards the top of the Pyramid are not so high as the lower ones. One last longish effort then, enlivened by the chattering guide, who well-nigh dispersed the remaining breath that was in me by gravely inquiring if the gentleman down below were my husband and why my Mamma was not here with me, and I stood at the top of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh, with the famous view spread around me, of which I had so often heard and read, and so little dreamed of seeing with my own eyes.

After a few moments to recover breath and my senses, the first objects 1 sought were Cousin Phil and Selina. How grand I felt up there, and how very small indeed they looked as they waved their specks of handkerchiefs up in congratulation to me!

Read more »

Cairo in Festive Mood, 1863

Cairo in Festive Mood, 1863
G.A. Hoskins

Cairo in Festive Mood

The festivals of Cairo are very interesting, but travellers, spending almost all their time on the Nile, have seldom an opportunity of seeing them.

The Mooled el Hassaneyn is a grand festival to celebrate the birth of El Hassaneyn, whose head is buried in his mosk, and, except the Mooled of the Prophet, excels everything of the kind celebrated in Cairo. I witnessed it on the last and best night Tuesday, the 7th of November. It was almost a scene from the Arabian Nights.

After driving through dark and narrow streets, deserted, except by a few straggling passengers, each with his long paper lantern, carried by himself or his servant, we burst into long bazaars, brilliantly illuminated by a line of entirely glass chandeliers, lighted with oil; the smallest had from thirty to forty lights, the largest about two hundred. I observed two with fourteen rows of lights, having the appearance of so many chandeliers, one above another. The stems and designs of these chandeliers were almost always beautiful. At the base there was generally a large globe of glass, pure as crystal, about six to nine inches in diameter. Above these were similar globes, or sometimes half-globes, coloured gold, blue and red. The chandeliers appeared to be what we should call in Europe old Venetian glass, and lighted up admirably the beautiful street architecture, the glorious white and red mosks with their picturesque doors and minarets, and the elegant fountains. Awnings of various colours covered portions of the bazaars, giving a gay and tentlike appearance to the scene.

It was, however, the people that interested me most. The bazaars and streets appeared a sea of white turbans, not one in a hundred wearing only the red tarboosh. The shops or stalls were all lighted up, and the citizens were seated on the benches before them, often on Persian carpets, smoking their pipes. Fickees were reciting the whole of the Koran; many were listening, whilst grey-beards, with spectacles on their noses, were reading portions of the sacred volume, making prayers and recitals for the sake of El Hassaneyn.

Beyond the gates of Cairo are the Tombs of the Caliphs in the City of the Dead, the Northern Cemetery, where the Mamluk sultans have been laid in great splendor since the fifteenth century. In 1326 the Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta visited another great cemetery to the south of Cairo.

Read more »

The Rise of the Nile: The Nilometer, 1833

The Rise of the Nile: The Nilometer, 1833
Robert Curzon

Rise of the Nile

In England everyone talks about the weather, and all conversation is opened by exclamations against the heat or the cold, the rain, or the drought; but in Egypt, during one part of the air at least, the rise of the Nile forms the general topic of conversation. Sometimes the ascent of the water is unusually rapid, and then nothing is talked of but inundations; for if the river overflows too much, whole villages are washed away; and as they are for the most part built of sunburned bricks and mud, they are completely annihilated; and when the waters subside, all the boundary marks are obliterated, the course of canals is altered, and mounds and embankments are washed away. On these occasions the smaller landholders have great difficulty in recovering their property; for few of them know how far their fields extend in one direction or the other, unless a tree, a stone, or something else remains to mark the separation of one man’s flat piece of mud from that of his neighbour. But the more frequent and the far more dreaded calamity is the deficiency of water. This was the case in 1833, and we heard nothing else talked of.

Has it risen much today?” inquires one.
“Yes, it has risen half a pic since the morning.”
“What! no more? In the name of the Prophet! what will become of the cotton?” “Yes, and the doura will be burnt up to a certainty if we do not get four pics more.”

In short, the Nile has it all its own way; everything depends on the manner in which it chooses to behave, and El Bahar (the river) is in everybody’s mouth from morning till night. Criers go about the city several times a day during the period of the rising, who proclaim the exact height to which the water has arrived, and the precise number of pics which are submerged on the Nilometer.

The Nilometer is an ancient octagon pillar of red stone in the island ofRhoda, on the sides of which graduated scales are engraved. It stands in the centre of a cistern, about twenty-five feet square, and more than that in depth. A stone staircase leads down to the bottom, and the side walls are ornamented with Cufic inscriptions beautifully cut. Of this antique column I have seen more than most people; for on 28th of August, 1833, the water was so low that there was a great apprehension of a total failure of the crops, and of the consequent famine. At the time nine feet more water was wanted to ensure an average crop; much of the Indian corn had already failed; and from the Pasha in his palace to the poorest fellah in his mud hovel, all were in consternation; for in this country, where it never rains, everything depends on irrigation the revenues of the state, the food of the country, and the life and death of the bulk of the population.

Read more »

The Gardens of Cairo and Memorials of Jesus, 1839

The Gardens of Cairo and Memorials of Jesus, 1839
P.D. Holthaus

Gardens of Cairo

[Returning from the Pyramids] . . . we again reached the Nile, opposite to Old Cairo. We sailed for the Nile island, Roda, and saw the ancient building in which the Pharaohs once resided. On this island are very beautiful gardens and walks, which belong to Ibrahim Pasha, and particularly a splendid botanic garden. Foreign plants and flowers of all kinds adorn it, and diffuse around their precious odours. Many slender palms and fountains give shade and coolness. Through the middle flows a broad canal, with several islands; and in a large pond are many singular gold and silver fish. There is also a lovely shell grotto, by which a sentinel is constantly posted. Several other gardens extend themselves close up the Harem of Ibrahim Pasha, which, on that account, you are not allowed to enter. At the southern end of the island is the Nile Meter [Nilometer], a white column of marble, on which are marked the heights of the Nile’s risings. The height of the water is every day proclaimed through the streets of grand Cairo. . . .

In successive days I visited all the remarkable objects of Cairo, and those several places that are memorable through their connection with the Sacred records. The very next morning I mounted an ass and rode again with a guide to Old Cairo. In a Coptic Christian church, I saw under ground, in a rocky cave, the place where Mary and Joseph, when they were persecuted by Herod, are said to have lived with the child. A cradle hewn in the stone, marks the spot where the young child Jesus slept. They show also the sleeping place of Mary, and the well from which she drew water, as well as a little bath.

The next day I rode with a guide, nine miles to the north of Cairo, to the tree where the parents of Jesus, with their child, passed the night, as they fled into Egypt. This tree stands not far from a village, in a citron thicket, and in a garden full of balsams, and where many other precious plants grow. This, called the Tree of the Mother of God, is an old fig-tree, which has divided in the middle, and has thus two stems. Its boughs still put forth green leaves, and still bear fruit. After I had cut my name and place of birth in this oldest tree in the world, I returned through a beautiful and romantic country, and through two villages surrounded by palm-trees, and orchards, towards Cairo.

Through a singular avenue of acacias and fig-trees, we arrived, six miles from the city, at Shubra. Here Mehemed Ali has his pleasure-palace, and a wonderfully beautiful botanic garden. The paths are all paved with mottled stones; the flowers, plants and fruits, extremely diversified. There are spice, pepper and cinnamon trees. In a magnificent and richly-wrought fountain, you see lions and crocodiles, out of whose jaws the water springs, and a gas-light is suspended above it.

Today, one of the little frequented treats of Cairo is the wonderfully restored Nilometer on Roda Island. In Robert Curzon’s day it still measured the prosperity of the whole country from the flood of the Nile as it had nearly a millennium earlier. A ‘bad Nile’ spelled hardship and poverty for all the people of Egypt. Curzon visited it at low water; Captains Irby and Mangles when high water gave prosperity. In 1826, John Came was fortunate enough to witness the day of the cutting of the Nile bank, allowing the river to flow into the city, while G.A. Hoskins enjoyed another Cairo festival.

Read more »

Cario and Egypt Tourism

A Changing City, 1970
Elizabeth Warnock Fernea

Along the river the changes are even more dramatic. Standing on the steps of the Museum of Antiquities, it is difficult to imagine that the view across Liberation Square to the river did not exist twenty years ago, that this central section of modern Cairo was occupied by the British Army. By cutting a riverside highway through the old army compound and building beside the highway the pleasant tree-shaded esplanade of the Corniche, the president gave to his people the view and the freedom of the Nile banks, which had once been reserved for a few British officials and titled Egyptians.

Cairo

He extended Maidan Ismailia across the British parade grounds, planted trees and grass and flowers, erected mobile film screens, folk art museums. In a decade the focus of the modern city has shifted to this maidan, renamed Liberation Square; a cluster of new buildings has risen to encircle it. Beside the old Museum of Antiquities, long still pools reflect the blue and orange mosaic tiles flaring across the facade of the Nile Hilton; nearby stand the Arab League headquarters, the new Shepheard’s Hotel, the Cairo town hall, and the Egyptian radio and television studios.

He may not have realised it, but President Nasser was only carrying one step further the tradition of other leaders and conquerors throughout the history of the Near East, who in times of peace have used their power to create gardens, surroundings of beauty in which to enjoy their leisure. The Arabic word for paradise is El Genneh, literally, the garden, and what could be more heavenly than a lush garden in a region of the world where eighty percent of the land is dry, arid desert?

In the past, of course, the leaders pleasured only themselves. As early as the sixth century, in Fustat, the original army camp from which Cairo proper grew, Khumarawayh, son of Ibn Tulun, was busy silvering and gilding the trees in his palace grounds.

The Mameluke lord, Emir Ezbek, home from the wars in the fifteenth century, built a pleasure lake in Cairo, where “floated the flowers of the yellow water lily.” Later, beside this lake Napoleon set up his headquarters and here the first Shepheard’s Hotel of whodunit fame was eventually built.

It was the great Albanian Mohammed Ali who was responsible for the first “public” garden. He filled in the lake, landscaped it and opened it to the fashionable citizens of Victorian Cairo.

But the Ezbekiyah Gardens, commemorating the old emir who watched the yellow water lilies, charged an entrance fee, which effectively screened its clientele. President Nasser’s idea of free gardens for everyone’s enjoyment is relatively modern; we were glad that one such garden was so close to us.

Related Web Search : 

• Cairo
• Cairo Egypt
• Cairo Weather
• Cairo International Airport
• Cairo Museum
• Cairo Map
• Cairo Hotels
• Cairo Opera House
• Flights to Cairo
• Cairo Prayer Times
• Egypt Cairo
• Egypt Tourism

Read more »

The Baths of Cairo, c. 1200

The Baths of Cairo, c. 1200
Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi

The Egyptian baths are also worthy of admiration. I have never seen better constructed or better positioned, nor more excellent for beauty and wisdom. Their pools, to begin with, are capable of each containing two to four corner basins or more. The water is conveyed by two taps, one for hot water, the other for cold water. Those who would bathe themselves descend into the basin and plunge into the water.

Baths of Cairo

Inside these baths are cabinets furnished with doors, where one undresses; there are special cabinets for persons of distinction so that they do not mix with common persons, and do not appear naked in public. This room for undressing is well arranged and constructed. In the middle is a marble basin ornamented with columns which support a dome. The ceilings of all these places are ornamented with paintings; the walls are divided by white panels. The pavement is of marbles of various colours and sections, those of the interior being always more beautiful than those of the exterior. These baths are very light, the roofs are very high. All the vases are of various brilliant colours, clear and very elegant. In a word, when one enters one wishes never to leave, and in fact, when a prince at enormous expense builds himself a house, he spares nothing to embellish his dwelling, and he never fails to make a most beautiful bath.

Cairo’s gardens and parks are an inheritance from the past the green lungs of a throbbing metropolis. Elizabeth Fernea acclaimed the gardens and the people who created them; the German journeyman Holthaus found in the gardens, as elsewhere, sites that link Cairo to the infant Jesus.

Related Web Search :

• Cairo
• Cairo Egypt
• Cairo Weather
• Cairo International Airport
• Cairo Museum
• Cairo Map
• Cairo Hotels
• Cairo Opera House
• Flights to Cairo
• Cairo Prayer Times
• Egypt Cairo
• Egypt Tourism

Read more »

The Bagnio, 1783 James

The Bagnio, 1783
James Capper

After your arrival at Cairo, I would advise you as well for your health as for pleasure, almost immediately to repair to the Hummam or Bagnio. The Turkish manner of bathing is infinitely superior to any thing of the kind that is now known, or at least practised, in any part of Europe, for even most of the inhabitants of Italy, once so famous for the magnificence of their baths, have long neglected this luxurious but salutary custom. As some of your friends may never have seen a Turkish bagnio, I shall attempt a description of what I used, which was one of the common sort, such as are to be met with in every city of the Levant.

The first room is the undressing chamber which is lofty and spacious. Near the wall is a kind of bench raised about two feet from the floor, and about seven or eight feet wide, so that after bathing a person may lie down upon it full length; the windows are near the top of the room, as well that the wind may not blow upon the bathers when undressed, as for decency’s sake.

After undressing a servant gives you a napkin to wrap round you, and also a pair of slippers, and thus equipped you are conducted through a narrow passage to the steam room or bath, which is a large round room of about twenty-five feet diameter paved with marble, and in the centre of it is a circular bench where you are seated until you find yourself in a profuse perspiration, then your guide or attendant immediately begins rubbing you with his hand covered in a piece of coarse stuff called keffay, and thereby peels off from the skin a kind of scurf, which cannot be moved by washing only.

When he has rubbed you a few minutes he conducts you to a small room, where there is a hot bath about four feet deep and ten feet square, in which he will offer to wash you having his hand covered with a smoother stuff than before; or you may have some perfumed soap given you to wash yourself. After you have remained here as long as is agreeable, you are conducted to another little side room, where you find two cocks of water, the one hot the other cold, which you may throw over yourself with a basin, the water being tempered to any degree of warmth, or perfectly cold if you prefer it.

This being the last ablution, you are then covered with a napkin, and from hence conducted to the undressing room, and placed upon the before-mentioned bench, with a carpet under you and, being extended upon it full length, your attendant again offers to rub you dry with napkins. Some people have their nails cut, and also are shampooed; the Turks generally smoke after bathing and the operation of shampooing; and in about an hour, a few minutes more or less, they commonly dress and go home.

Read more »

Cries in the Market, 1844 | Walking Through Egypt

Cries in the Market, 1844
Edward Lane

Egyptian Market

Bread, vegetables, and a variety of eatables are carried about for sale. The cries of some of the hawkers are curious, and deserve to be mentioned. The seller of tirmis (or lupins) often cries, “Aid! O Imbabee! Aid!” This is understood in two senses as an invocation for aid to the sheyk Imbabeh (in the village from which the best tirmis is grown) and also implying that it is through the aid of [this] saint that the tirmis of Imbabeh is so excellent. . . . The seller of sour limes cries, “God make them light (or easy of sale)! O limes!” ... A curious cry of the seller of a kind of sweetmeat (halaweh) composed of treacle fried with some other ingredients is “For a nail! O sweetmeat!” indicating that children and servants often steal implements of iron etc from the house in which they live, and give them to him in exchange for his sweetmeat. The hawker of oranges cries, “Honey! O oranges! Honey!”. . . A very singular cry is used by the seller of roses: “The rose was a thorn; from the sweat of the Prophet it blossomed.” This alludes to a miracle related to the Prophet. The fragrant flowers of the henna-tree (or Egyptian privet) are carried about for sale, and the seller cries. “Odours of paradise! O flowers of the henna!”

Cries in the Streets, 1970
Elizabeth Warnock Fernea
Was I lonely? Yes, I admitted to myself, I was, a bit. Being a mother and a sitt took a little getting used to, after my years as a career girl, a working wife and a companion-helper to my husband in his research. I sat there in unaccustomed leisure, and while the children shouted on the swings and the nannies scolded them and wiped their noses and kept them out of the drinking fountain and gossiped, the lush produce of the Delta and the services of the city were hawked along the street and carried up and down the back stairs of the apartment houses fronting the ganeena.

“Crazy tomatoes! Jewels! Jewels!” Yes, the tomato peddler came and the lettuce vendors, crying “Khass! Khass! Fresh lettuce!” for although open-air markets, grocery stores and government food cooperatives are found throughout Cairo, the individual peddlers still make the rounds, hoping for a tiny profit on a barrow of produce, bought early in the morning on the outskirts of the city from the carts arriving from the countryside.

Onions, potatoes, radishes (“Fiji! Fiji!”), garlands of garlic, braces of pigeons, crates of live chickens, tiny eggs in grass baskets were offered for sale on our street and, in season, fresh artichokes and narrow sweet strawberries. Oranges and grapefruit came in the winter, pomegranates and prickly pear in the spring, with Persian melons and mangoes, and in early summer, the great red watermelons for which Egypt is justly famous.

Read more »

The Bazaars of Cairo, 1839 P-D.

The Bazaars of Cairo, 1839 P-D. 
Holthaus

Bazaars of Cairo

The finest part of eastern cities are the bazaars or markets; that in Cairo is on a remarkably large scale. Here all the glories of the world are exhibited for sale: gold, ivory, gum, silks, balsams, pearls of great value, carpets, Persian shawls, singular shells from the Red Sea, corals, ostrich feathers and ostrich eggs, Nile whips cut from the hides of the hippopotamus, and besides these the precious fruits of the torrid zone, all in separate departments. In these bazaars I purchased a variety of articles. These wares are brought from the Nile, and by the countless caravans which from Cairo traverse all the East, and which take thence in exchange provisions and articles of dress. In the bazaars are the shops also of the Arab artisans, who have liberty to sit here and work, and expose their wares to sale. . . .

Ancient Coins, 1801
Edward Daniel Clarke
Who would have believed that ancient Roman coins were still in circulation in any part of the world? Yet this is strictly true. We noticed Roman copper medals in Cairo given in exchange in the markets among the coins of the city, and valued at something less than our halfpenny. What is more remarkable, we obtained some of the large bronze medals of the Ptolemies circulating at higher value, but in the same manner.

Read more »

The Ever-changing Streets, 1865

The Ever-changing Streets, 1865
Lady Herbert

The streets are a never-ending source of amusement and interest to the party not only from their intrinsic beauty, but from the indescribable variety and novelty of the bazaars and of the costumes of the people. Ladies of whom nothing is visible but the eyes, the rest of their bodies being enveloped in gorgeous-coloured silks, and over all a cloak of black silk called a habarah; dervishes with their long black robes, and green turbans; picturesque water-carriers, with their water-skins, and others with long sticks of sugar cane, the chewing of which is general amusement to people of all ages and classes; Arabs and fierce Bedouin in burnous, and Kaffirs with long guns; Syrians with red caps and flowing robes; fat Turks in flowered silk dressing-gowns and ample turbans; peasant women draped from head to foot in the blue dress and black veil which are their only covering, with a child generally sitting, monkey-like, on their shoulder; and in the midst of this motley crowd thronging the narrow streets, which are latticed over with matting to keep out the sun, strings of camels and donkeys beautifully caparisoned with crimson and emboroidered trappings, closely followed by their owners, screaming out ‘riglak’ (beware), ‘shimlak’ (to the left), ‘Ya Sitt’ (O Lady) etc., etc. (to warn the passengers out of the way), in every conceivable key and pitch of shrillness, the whole combining to form a picture unrivalled in any other Eastern town.

Now and then they came on a marriage procession; the bride, in crimson and covered with jewels, walking under a canopy, supported by four men, and preceded by musicians, producing the most wonderful melody out of the most curious instruments. This kind of procession was often immediately followed by a group of little boys, dressed in red, with gold-embroidered jackets, on horseback, going to be circumcised; or else a funeral would block the way; that is, a long string of hired mourners, men and women, veiled and howling, the coffin richly covered with silk trappings, and a diamond ‘aigrette’ at the head, testifying to the rank of the deceased.

Still, as ever, the bazaars of Cairo offer excitement and variety to citizen and visitor alike. The vendors’ cries that rose to the windows of Edward Lane’s house have changed but continue as has the coinage used in some transactions. James Capper, ‘Abd al-Latif, and many citizens and visitors enjoyed the pleasures of the Bagnio.

Read more »

The Sultan’s Banquet, c. 1050

The Sultan’s Banquet, c. 1050
Naser-e Khosraw

It is customary for the Sultan to have a banquet twice a year, on the two great holidays, and to hold court for both the elite and the common people: the elite in his presence and the commoners in other halls and places. Having heard a great deal about these banquets, I was very anxious to see one with my own eyes, so I told one of the Sultan’s clerks, with whom I had struck up a friendship, that I had seen the courts of the Persian sultans, such as Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna and his son Mas’ud, who were great potentates enjoying much prosperity and luxury, and now I wanted to see the court of the Prince of the Faithful. He therefore spoke a word to the chamberlain, who was called the Saheb al-Setr.

The last of Ramadan 440 (8 March 1049) the hall was decorated for the next day, which was the festival, when the Sultan was to come after prayer and preside over the feast. Taken by my friend, as I entered the door of the hall, I saw constructions, galleries and porticos that would take too long to describe accurately. There were twelve square structures, built one next to the other, each more dazzling than the last. Each measured one hundred cubits square, and one was a thing one hundred metres square with a dais placed the entire length of the building at a height of four ells, on three sides all of gold, with hunting and sporting scenes depicted thereon and also an inscription in marvellous calligraphy. All the carpets and pillows were of Byzantine brocade and buqalmuti, each woven exactly to the measurements of its place. There was an indescribable lattice-work balustrade of gold along the sides. Beside the dais and next to the wall were silver steps. The dais itself was such that if this book were nothing from beginning to end but a description of it, words would still not suffice.

They say that fifty thousand maunds of sugar were appropriated for the Sultan’s feast. For decoration on the banquet table I saw a confection like an orange tree, every branch and leaf of which had been executed in sugar, and thousands of images and statuettes in sugar. The Sultan’s kitchen is outside the palace, and there are always fifty slaves attached to it. There is a subterranean passageway between the building and the kitchen, and the provisioning is such that every day fourteen camel-loads of ice are sued in the royal sherbet-kitchen.

Most of the emir’s and Sultan’s entourage received emoluments there, and if the people of the city make requests on behalf of the suffering they are given something. Whatever medication is needed in the city is given out from the harem, and there is also no problem in the distribution of other ointments, such as balsam.

Read more »

Streets, Houses and Palaces of Cairo Egypt

Streets, Houses, and Palaces of Cairo, c. 1612
George Sandys

Some of those streets I have found two miles in length, some not a quarter so long; every one of them is locked up in the night, with a door at each end, and guarded by a musketeer, whereby fire, robberies, tumults, and other disorders are prevented.

Palaces of Egypt

Without the city, towards the wilderness, to stop sudden incursions of the Arabs from abroad, there watch on horseback four Sanjiaks, with each of them a thousand horsemen.

This city is built after the Egyptian manner, high, and of large rough stone, part of brick, the streets being narrow. It hath not yet been above one hundred years in the Turks’ possession, wherefore the old buildings remain; but, as they decay, the new to be after the Turkish manner, poor, low, much of mud and timber; yet, of the modern fabrics, I must except diverse new palaces which I have seen, both of Turks, and such Egyptians as most engage against their own country and so flourish in its oppression. I have oft gone to view them and their entertainments, . . .

The palaces I found vast and high, no state or flourish outwardly; the first court spacious, set with fair trees for shade, where are several beasts or rare birds, and wonderful even in those parts; the inner court joined to delicious gardens, watered with fountains and rivulets; beside the infinite variety of strange plants, there wanted no shade from trees of cassia, oranges, lemons, figs of Pharaoh, tamarinds, palms, and others, amongst which pass very frequently chameleons.

Cairo Houses

The entry into the house, and all the rooms throughout, are paved with many several-coloured marbles, put into fine figures; so likewise the walls, but in mosaic of a less cut; the roof laid with thwart beams, a foot and a half distant, all carved, great and double gilt; the windows with grates of iron, few with glass, as not desiring to keep out of the wind, and to avoid the glimmering of the sun, which in those hot countries glass would break with too much dazzling upon the eye. The floor is made with some elevations a foot high, where they sit to eat and drink; those are covered with rich tapestries; the lower pavement is to walk upon, where in the chief dining chamber, according to the capacity of the room, is made one or more richly gilt fountains in the upper end of the chamber, which, through secret pipes, supplies in the middle of the room, a dainty pool, either round or four-square, triangular or of other figure, as the lace requires ... so neatly kept, and the water so clear, as make apparent the exquisite mosaic at the bottom; herein are preserved a kind of fish of two or three feet long, like barbells, which have often taken bread out of my hand, sucking it from my fingers at the top of the water.

But that which to me seemed more magnificent than all this was my entertainment. Entering one of these rooms, I saw at the upper end, amongst others sitting cross-legged, the Lord of the Palace, who beckoning me to come, I first put off my shoes, as the rest had done, then bowing very often, with my hand on my breast, came near; where he making me sit down, there attended ten or twelve handsome young pages, all clad in scarlet, with crooked daggers and scimitars, richly gilt; four of them came with a sheet of taffety and covered me; another held a golden incense with rich perfumes, wherewith being a little smoked, they took all away; next came two with sweet water, and sprinkled me; after that, one brought a porcelain dish of coffee, which when I had drunk, another served up a glass of excellent sherbet. Then began our discourse. ... In their questions and replies, I noted the Egyptians to have a touch of the merchant or Jew, with a spirit not so soldier-like and open as the Turks, but more discerning and pertinent.

Related Web Search :

• Cairo
• Cairo Egypt
• Cairo Houses and Homes
• Cairo Weather
• Cairo International Airport
• Cairo Museum
• Cairo Map
• Cairo Hotels
• Cairo Opera House
• Flights to Cairo
• Cairo Prayer Times
• Egypt Cairo
• Egypt Tourism

Read more »

Buildings of Cairo Egypt

The Buildings of Cairo, c. 1200
Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi

One notices in the buildings of the Egyptians a marvellous art and a very wise disposition of the parts; it is very rare to leave any place unused which has no purpose. Their palaces are vast: usually they make their abode in the upper floors, and are practical enough to make the openings of their Cairo houses exposed to the agreeable winds from the north. One sees hardly any Cairo houses which have not their ventilators. Their ventilators are tall and wide and open to every action of the wind; they are placed carefully with much skill.

Buildings of Cairo

The markets and streets in Egypt are very wide and the buildings very high. They construct them of hewn stone and red bricks. . . . They construct the latrine drains very solidly, and I found in a ruined palace these drains still existing in good condition. They dug the trenches until water was found, in a manner so that for a very long time there was no need to clean them out.

Cairo Buildings

When they build a tenement Cairo houses , a palace for a prince, or a covered market, they get an engineer and entrust its execution to him. He comes to the place, which is on a slight elevation or platform, devises a plan in his mind, and arranges all the parts of the plan, following the kind of building required. After this he undertakes successively the various parts one after the other, and finishes the whole in a way so that as each part is finished it is inhabited, until all is completed. One part finished, he undertakes another, and so on till the whole building in all its parts is united, without their being any fault or omission to be remedied afterwards.

Related Web Search :

• Cairo
• Cairo Egypt
• Cairo Houses
• Cairo Weather
• Cairo International Airport
• Cairo Museum
• Cairo Map
• Cairo Hotels
• Cairo Opera House
• Flights to Cairo
• Cairo Prayer Times
• Egypt Cairo
• Egypt Tourism

Read more »

The Splendid Mosque, 1846

The Splendid Mosque, 1846
Isabella Romer

Splendid Mosque

This mosque, (the name of which signifies the “Splendid Mosque”, and not, as has erroneously been stated, the “Mosque of Flowers”), may be termed the University of the East, for in the numerous Colleges attached to it are educated all the youths destined in this part of the world for the priesthood and the profession of the law, which are always combined in Mahometan countries, where he who best understands the Koran is the best lawyer. Formerly El Azhar sent out its pupils throughout the whole of Africa and part of Asia, and it contains separate colleges under the same roof for the natives of the different provinces of Egypt, or of other Mahometan nations who come to study there, and pay nothing for the instruction they receive. But the number of these has greatly diminished since Mohammed AJi seized upon the cultivable lands that belonged to the mosques, which in the case of El Azhar, formed a considerable portion of its revenues. It now contains from one to two thousand students, three hundred of whom form a college of the blind, which is maintained from funds bequeathed for that purpose by pious Moslems.

The mosque is situated in the very heart of the city, and in such a labyrinth of thickly populated and narrow streets that no good view of its exterior is to be obtained from any side. It has five entrances, the principal one leading into the vast court paved with marble, which we found full of students, seated upon the pavement in little groups, and studying with their professors. I confess that I trembled as I walked through them, and fancied that every one who looked up at me would discover, from the colour of my eyes and the absence of khol round them, that I was an European, and, even an Englishwoman; but nothing of the sort happened, and I got safely into the interior of the mosque. Its great space, and the innumerable quantity of low slender columns with which it is supported, spreading in all directions like a forest, reminded me of the descriptions I have read of the Moorish Mosque of Cordova; but there is no great beauty in El Azhar beyond that which magnitude and airiness produce. We seated ourselves at the foot of one of the columns, and I there made the best use I could of my eyes.

The interior of the mosque was quite as full as the great court, and the groups were highly characteristic and exceedingly picturesque; the base of each column being surrounded by a little turbaned conclave deep in either the study of, or dissertations on, the Koran.

Read more »

The Great Mosque of Sultan Hassan, 1857

The Great Mosque of Sultan Hassan, 1857 
William C. Prime

Mosque of Sultan Hassan

In one of our rambles about town, going up one street and down another, without heeding wither they led us, we found ourselves one day at the great entrance of the mosque of the Sultan Hassan, and dismounted to enter it. Outside the door were vendors of trifles of various sorts; a kind of old junk dealers, secondhand clothiers, and sellers of paste and imitation jewellery. Among them were vendors of Meccan curiosities sandal-wood beads, and the wood, dipped in the holy well of Hagar, which they use to clean their teeth with. All, or nearly all, the Moslems have good teeth, kept white with this wood, a small stick of which, chewed at one end, forms a soft brush, which they use till the whole is worn away.

The mosque is a grand structure, chiefly interesting from being built of the stone which was the casing of the great Pyramid of Ghizeh. It is the most imposing structure in all the Mohammedan countries I have visited, and probably the most in the Moslem world. The lofty walls surround a rectangular court, one side of which opens by a grand arch into an immense alcove, in the rear of which is the enclosed chamber around the tomb of Sultan Hassan, who was murdered and buried here. . . . On the tomb lie, as is the custom, a copy of the Koran in a strong box, and sundry old coverings of silk, that were once heavy and gorgeous. The days are past when any one lived to cover the Sultan Hassan with cashmere.

Read more »

Looking down across Cairo, 1834

Looking down across Cairo, 1834 
Hon. W.E. Fitzmaurice

The two following days we amused ourselves by seeing the various mosques and curious buildings about Cairo; in the evening I strolled up to Sifa, which overlooks the Citadel.

Mohamed Ali Mosque

It is a scene that one would never tire of: standing on a bed of high rocks you have a most beautiful panorama before you of every description of scenery. In the foreground are the Tombs of the Mamelukes, Old Cairo stretching out beyond the river; here and there the eye rests on an Arab village with its minaret and grove of palms; in the distance the Pyramids seem to increase in size as the sun sinks behind them in the gloom of the desert, and occasionally you catch a turn of the majestic river, as it winds its way down this beautiful valley, bearing verdure and fertility on its dimpled waters; reminding one of the beautiful lines in the opening of Rasselas [the novel by James Bruce, the Scottish explorer], where truly may it be styled, ‘The Father of Waters’, and as truly does it scatter over half the world the harvest of Egypt.

The most splendid and charming among the buildings of the city are the mosques some grand and dominant in their neighborhoods; others a homely part of a small community. Other great buildings, too, have made their impact on travelers.

Related Web Search :

• Cairo
• Cairo Egypt
• Cairo Weather
• Cairo International Airport
• Cairo Museum
• Cairo Map
• Cairo Hotels
• Cairo Opera House
• Flights to Cairo
• Cairo Prayer Times
• Egypt Cairo
• Egypt Tourism

Read more »

Canals Cut through the Cairo Egypt

Canals Cut through the City, 1039
Naser-e Khosraw

In the midst of the houses in the city are gardens and orchards watered by wells. In the sultan’s harem are the most beautiful gardens imaginable. Waterwheels have been constructed to irrigate these gardens. There are trees planted and pleasure parks built even on the roofs. At the time 1 was there, a house on a lot twenty by twelve ells was being rented for fifteen dinars a month.

Egyptian Mosque

The house was four stories tall, three of which were rented out. The tenant wanted to take the topmost floor also for [an additional] five dinars, but the landlord would not give it to him, saying that he might want to go there sometimes, although, during the year we were there, he did not come twice. These houses are so magnificent and fine that you would think they were made of jewels, not of plaster, tile and stone! All the houses of Cairo are built separate one from another, so that no one’s trees or outbuildings are against anyone else’s walls. Thus, whenever anyone needs to, he can open the walls of his house and add on, since it causes no detriment to anyone else.

Going west outside the city, you find a large canal called al-Khalij [Canal], which was built by the father of the present sultan, who has three hundred villages on his private property along the canal. The canal was cut from Old to New Cairo, where it turns and runs past the sultan’s palace. Two kiosks are built at the head of the canal, one called Lulu [Pearl] and the other Jawhara [jewel].

Cairo is huge, yet from almost every part of it one can glimpse the Citadel high above the city, built there by Salah al-Din, or Saladin, and now dominated by the twin minarets and dome of the mosque of Muhammad ‘Ali.

Related Web Search :

• Cairo
• Cairo Egypt
• Cairo Weather
• Cairo International Airport
• Cairo Museum
• Cairo Map
• Cairo Hotels
• Cairo Opera House
• Flights to Cairo
• Cairo Prayer Times
• Egypt Cairo
• Egypt Tourism

Read more »