Just as the interest of Alexandria belongs to what we call antiquity, so does Cairo derive the whole of its interest from existing sources. I say what we call antiquity, for by that word we mean the classical period of Greece and Rome; but this classical period is, in reality, only the connecting link between our modern world and the old primæval world of Egypt; it is thus the true middle ages of universal history; while true antiquity is the domain of Pharaohnic Egypt. But as to Cairo: El Islam is of the things that now are, and Cairo was never anything but a Mahomedan city. Its most interesting memories are of the mighty Saladin, who fortified it, and preferred it to all other cities. It is the true capital of Arabdom. Not its holy city, but its Paris. Its history is all of Caliphs and Khedivés.
But the first thing to understand about any famous city is how it came to be where it is. Cairo is where it is, because Memphis was where it was. Its site is the natural centre of Egypt. It occupies, by the dispensation of Nature, the place in Egypt which the heart does in the human body. Being situated at the apex of the Delta, it commands the axis of communication throughout the whole of the upper country, and all the divergent lines of communication which traverse the Delta. He who establishes himself here has cut the country in two; and can concentrate all its resources, or assail any point, at his will. It is the vital centre. Just so was it with Memphis under the old Monarchy, and the Hyksos, and during the subsequent history. No sooner had an invader got a firm footing here than the rest of the country was prostrate, and helpless. The master of Cairo is the master of Egypt.
The city is situated on the right bank of the river, at the foot of a spur of the Mokattam, or Arabian, range of hills. In order to get drinkable water it was necessary that it should be placed so low as that the water of the river might be brought into it. The reader is now aware that there are no springs in Egypt, and that the water of the wells, from the nature of the soil, is brackish and undrinkable. There is, however, in the citadel of Cairo a well of sweet water; the well is sunk through the limestone, of course to somewhat below the depth of the height on which the citadel stands; and so it came to suggest to me the thought that, if borings were made of sufficient depth to pass completely through the nitrous alluvium of the valley, and to perforate the subjacent strata, it might be possible to find water fit for drinking anywhere, and everywhere. It might not often be worth while to go to this expense, because in most places it would still be cheaper to get water from the river; but it would be interesting to ascertain whether or no good water could be obtained in this way. If so, there would then be one small matter, at all events, which had escaped the sagacity of the old Egyptians.
But to return to the site of Cairo: the level ground, on which it stands, beginning at Boulak, its harbour on the river, reaches back about a mile, where it is met by the high ground, which enters the city at the south-east angle. On this point stands the citadel commanding the city. The hills of the range which throws out this spur are seen rising, to a considerable height, on the east of Cairo. They are utterly devoid of vegetation; and being of about the colour of the sand of the desert (they are of limestone), they glare in the sun, and are very striking and conspicuous objects in the scenery of the place. Wherever you leave the city, except at its north-west angle, and in the direction of the river, you enter at once on the absolute desert.
There is no view in Egypt to be compared with that from the Citadel of Cairo. The city, with all its oriental picturesqueness, is at your feet. Domes and minarets are everywhere. You look over it, and your eyes rest sometimes on the green culture, sometimes on the drab desert of Egypt. Beyond, stretching away till it is lost in the haze of distance, is the Valley of Egypt. Through it winds old Nile. It is closed on either side by the irregular ranges of the Libyan and Arabian hills. You know that these pass on through Egypt into Nubia, as the boundaries of the valley. Beyond the river, at the distance of eight or nine miles, on the lower stage of the Libyan range, stand the Great Pyramids of Gizeh. Further off, at about double the distance from you, stand the older Pyramids of Abouseir. Seen from no other point are the Pyramids so impressive. There they stand, at the entrance of the valley, and have stood for more than five thousand years, to tell all who might come down into Egypt of its greatness and glory. They have none of the forms, or features, of architecture. They are mountains, escarped for monuments, by Titan’s hands.
And a little further on are the mounds of Memphis. There lived the men—one would give something to see a day of the life of that old world—who imagined, and made these mountains. You remember that all you saw of them at Memphis was a colossal statue prostrate on the ground. As you look now on the Pyramids you understand that Colossus. These Titan builders felt themselves more than men.
You think how pleasant it would be to sit here, on the parapet of the citadel, inhaling the calumet of memory and imagination; your dear friend, however, who is with you, and who is the most patient and best fellow living, has had enough of it; and he summons back your thoughts from their flight into the far-off tracts of antique time, by a proposal to take another look at the Khan Khaleel Bazaar. As you move away you tell him, to be revenged, ‘that history, like religion, has no power over those who have no imagination; or an imagination furnished only with the images of their own sight-and-self-bounded world.’ ‘Nonsense,’ he replies; and you find yourself again jostling your way through the narrow, crowded, irregular streets of Cairo, upon an ass, with a little swarthy urchin running before you to clear your path. And though everybody seems to submit to him, and to attend readily to his shouts of ‘Right,’ ‘Left,’ ‘Mind your legs,’ you will always have to keep a sharp look-out yourself. You will often be brought to a standstill. There are no trottoirs. The people on foot, the camels, and donkeys, are all jumbled up together. The projecting loads on the camels’ sides seem almost arranged for giving you a lick on the head, and knocking you off your ass.
At last you emerge from the side streets into the Mouské. This is the main artery of the city, and here is the full tide of Cairene life. It is now between four and five o’clock, and the tide is at the top of the flood. The street is straight, and, for a Cairene street, wide enough; the crowd is great; but here everybody, as a matter of course, endeavours to make way for everybody. What you first notice is the abundance of colour. The red tarboosh is perhaps the commonest covering for the head. The turbans vary much; some are of white muslin; some of coloured shawls. The variety of dress is great. Nineteen-twentieths of the passers-by are clad in some form or other of Oriental costume. Their complexions vary as much as their dress. There is every shade, from the glossy black of the Nubian to the dead white of the Turk. The predominant colours are the different shades of yellowish brown which have resulted from the varying degrees of intermixture of Arabs and Copts. Here, at home, the men being at work during the day, it often happens that there are as many women in the street as men. In Cairo the former are often entirely wanting in the street scene, and are never seen in a large proportion. In stature the men are almost always above what we call the middle height, well proportioned, and never fat or pursy, like our beef-eating and beer-drinking people. Their features are regular and pleasing. Their bearing staid and dignified.
There are in the crowd men with water-skins and water-jars. For some insignificant coin—there are four hundred paras in a shilling—they sell drinks to thirsty souls. There are hawkers of bread, of fish, of vegetables, of dates, of oranges, and of a multitude of other matters. These articles are generally cried, if not in the name of the Prophet, still with some pious, or, if not so, then with some poetical, formula. Perhaps a carriage of the Viceroy passes containing some of the ladies of the hareem. They will be escorted by two black guardians of the hareem on horseback, one on each side of the carriage, and preceded by two runners carrying long wands, and dressed in spotless white, with the exception of their red fezes and gaily-coloured shawls. The latter they use as sashes. Each will have cost them fifteen pounds, or more.
When you have become accustomed to the people in the streets, you look at the people in the shops; of course not the Frank, but the native shops. These are merely recesses in the walls of the houses, which form the street. The merchant, or shopkeeper, seldom lives in the house, in the ground floor of which his shop is situated, but generally somewhere at a distance. He has no shopmen, or assistants. The recess, in which he carries on his business, if large, is about in space a cube of ten or twelve feet. It has no door or windows, but is closed with shutters, which the shopkeeper takes down when he comes to do business. He puts them up whenever he wants to go to Mosk, or elsewhere. When his shop is open for business he will be seen seated, cross-legged, on the floor in front of his goods. Every shop being a dark hole, and having its owner seated in front of it, reminded me of a prairie-dog village, where every hole has a prairie-dog seated in front of it, much in the same way; and, too, on the look out. These traders appear to have no Arab blood in them, but to be Greeks, Jews, Turks, Syrians, anybody and everybody except the people of the country. Many of them have an unhealthy appearance. Few of them are good-looking.
As to the houses, what most frequently attracts the eye is the carved wood lattice of the windows. The first floor is frequently advanced beyond the ground-floor. The archway of the door is, in the better class of houses, often ornamented with carved stone-work; and the door itself decorated with a holy text—reverently; perhaps, also, with some lurking idea of excluding evil influences.
But this style of building is now becoming obsolete; and the new houses in and around the Esbekeyeh, and between the Esbekeyeh and Boulak, are being built in the Frank style. The Viceroy has here, for the space of about a square mile, laid out broad macadamized streets, with broad trottoirs on each side, as if he were contemplating an European city. Not much, however, with the exception of these roadways, has yet been done towards carrying out his grand designs, except around the Esbekeyeh. This is the grand place, or square, of Cairo. It now contains a public garden, that would be an ornament worthy of any great European city. It is well lighted with gas made from English coal. As you go to the opera—for there is an opera, too, in Cairo—and return after it is over to your hotel, you are glad of the light; but you are, at the same time, conscious of a little sentimental jar. You did not go to Egypt to find coal gas, and London gas-lamp-posts in the city of Saladin, and of the Caliphs, and in the land of the Pharaohs. You are no longer surprised that the new houses are built in the Frank style.
The Mosks of Cairo may be counted by the hundred. Some have great historical interest; some great artistic merit; some are the great schools of the country.
The old Mosks of Cairo throw much light on the history of the pointed arch, particularly the oldest of them all, that of Ahmed Ebn e’ Tooloon; which, however, is in so ruinous a condition that it is no longer in use. Its date, as recorded in two Cufic inscriptions on the walls, is 879 A.D.—that is to say, three hundred years before the pointed arch was adopted in this country. It is very improbable that this Mosk of Tooloon was the first building in which it was used, because it is not introduced here hesitatingly, as would have been done had it been struggling for recognition, but is boldly and firmly carried out in every part of the structure, and even with some combination of the horseshoe shape, as if it were a form with which the architect had become so familiar that he had even begun to modify it. So great a change in construction, and in the effects produced by form, must have had to fight for some time against previously-established forms. We may, therefore, safely decide that its introduction reaches further back than the date just given. This is saying that the world is indebted for it to Saracenic thought, and taste. This need not surprise us, because at that time there was no other people whose thought was so prolific; and theirs was prolific because it had been aroused to effort by their great achievements. Just as we learn to walk by walking, and to talk by talking, so do men learn how to do great things by doing great things. Other Cairene Mosks continue this history of the pointed arch.
The Mosk of Sultan Hassam has features that are worth noticing. Few buildings exhibit greater freedom of design, which comes, I suppose, of that depth of feeling, which is able to break the fetters of thought. Such a structure could have been the product only of a time when mind was deeply moved, and had become conscious of its power. Men knew then what they wanted, and believed in themselves, that they could satisfy their want. In such times servile imitations, and reproductions are impossible. They do not express what all feel. They do not supply what all are asking for. In this Mosk the porch, the inner court, the astonishing height of the outer wall, springing from the declivity of the hill-side, all the details, and the whole general effect, show that those who built it were conscious of real, deep aspirations, and were not acting under factitious ones; and that they were conscious also of possessing within themselves the power of giving form to their aspirations. It interprets to us the mind of its builders. They were full of vigour, and self-reliance. They yearned to give expression, in forms of beauty, and grandeur, to what was stirring within them.
As I was thus communing, historically, with the intense Mahomedan feeling, which had given a voice to every stone in the building, I was interrupted by another voice, but it was one of a kind, which, we may presume, will never have a thought of clothing itself in forms of beauty, and grandeur. ‘Look,’ it said to me, ‘up there at those crosses.’ ‘No,’ I replied. ‘It is impossible. There can be no crosses here.’ The objects I was invited to look at crown the cornice of the central, hypæthral court. They bear some kind of resemblance to fleurs de lis. ‘Yes,’ the voice continued. ‘Any one can see now just how it all is. These are the old places from which those ritualists get their mediæval crosses, and all that kind of thing.’
The great Mosk of El Azar is the university of Egypt, and of the surrounding countries. The foreign students are divided according to nations. Those of Egypt according to the provinces they come from. The cycle of religion, law, science, and polite learning, as these words are understood in the East, is here taught. Some come merely to qualify themselves for professions, or occupations, in which what they may acquire here will be needed. Others come with the intention, as was contemplated in our own universities, of life-long study.
Some of the tombs of the Memlook, and of other dynasties, that have ruled modern Egypt, are good examples of oriental taste, and feeling. These tombs are generally connected with Mosks. This connexion was intended to add dignity to the tomb, and to enhance its sacredness. The Mosk and tomb together are regarded as the monument of the deceased prince. The desire to honour the dead has, in many of these monuments, produced admirable work, the beauty of which is proportionate to the depth of the desire which prompted it. Sad, however, is it to see such beautiful work now falling into decay. New dynasties in the East care nothing for the monuments of the dynasties that preceded them.
The money spent in building the utterly useless Mosk of Mohamed Ali in the citadel would have put into repair all these monuments, which abound not more in exquisite work than in historical interest; and which, then, would have been secured to the world for some centuries longer at least. But nothing of this kind can be expected of Orientals. To repair and maintain the monuments of past generations is not an idea that has ever commended itself to their minds. People build there to show forth their own greatness, and to perpetuate their own names. If, therefore, I have money to spend on wood and stone, why should I so spend it as to perpetuate another man’s name, and to set forth the greatness of some other builder? For this is what I should do if I repaired his Mosk, or palace. Would it not be wiser for me to spend it in perpetuating my own name, and setting forth my own greatness?
To us there occurs the thought of the historical value of the monuments of the past. This, however, is not an idea than can have any place in the mind of an Oriental. He has no conception of the historical value of anything; nor has he any idea of what history itself is. There can be no history where there is no progress; and his religion, by settling everything once for ever, excludes from his mind the idea of progress, and with it goes the idea of history.
But still, from our point of view, it is a waste of money and labour to build when you might repair. To repair is cheap, to build is costly. But this is precisely what commends the Oriental practice to the Oriental’s mind. That it will cost much money, and much labour pleases him. In matters of this kind, ideas of prudence and utility have no place. An hundred kings of England, we can imagine, occupying in succession Windsor Palace, and preferring it, simply on account of its antiquity, to anything they might be able to build themselves. Every one of them would think it a folly to entertain the idea of building another palace. But every Khedivé of Egypt, just like every King of Nineveh, must build a new one.
Private houses in Cairo appear to be in the same predicament as the Mosks. None are kept in a state of repair. Everything is either being built, or is falling into decay.
Every other Englishman you meet in Cairo, and it is more or less so throughout the East, has some story to tell you of the rapacity, and roguery of the bazaars. The complaint is made somewhat in the following style:—‘What do you think of that slippered, and turbaned old villain, of whom I bought this amber mouthpiece, and this kafia, having had the conscience to ask me four napoleons for each of them? I was not going to be done in that way, so I said to him, “You shocking cormorant, I’ll give you four napoleons for the two: not one para more. Four napoleons is my figure.” “Four napoleons!” he said, with a shudder, “I give you the things for nothing. Take them away with you.” And he pretended to put them into my hand. But I showed him the money. He could not stand the sight of the gold; and so you see I have got the amber, and the silk, at a fair price?’ Well: perhaps you have; or, perhaps, you have given too much for them, after all. But your story is no proof that the old fellow in slippers and turban was a rogue. It is you who do not know the circumstances and the customs of the country: and in this matter theirs differ from ours. With us there is so much competition in trade, that all the leaning is the other way. Every trader wishes to attract by the lowness of his prices. But still, here as there, the rule is to buy as cheap, and sell as dear as you can. This is the rule on which the slippered, and turbaned old fellow acts. He knows, though it is very hard for him to admit the idea—yet he admits it without understanding how it can be so—that you are travelling for your amusement. He, therefore, infers that you must have plenty of money to spare: otherwise you could not be travelling in this way. You want this kafia, or mouthpiece. There is no regular market-price, where there is so little competition. So he will try to get for it as much as he can. Small blame to him for that. When you command the market at home for any article, what do you do yourself? You ask for it what you can get, without reference to cost price. You sell a good weight-carrying hunter at a fancy price. You sell a piece of land to a neighbour at an accommodation price. If you can’t get what you asked at first, you abate something, and take less. He does the same.
You go into a shop anywhere in Italy, say a bookseller’s, and ask the price of a book. ‘So many lire,’ he replies: several more than he intends to take. He will receive it, if you give it; but he does not expect you to give it. He is very fond of a little talk; and to have a little talk with you is an agreeable addition to the pleasure of selling the book. You call this, contemptuously, chaffering; or, angrily, cheating. It is detestable to you, but the reverse of detestable to the Italian bibliopole. You are annoyed at it. He can’t understand why.
But to go back to our friend in the slippers and turban. The seat he invites you to take, and the coffee and pipe he offers to you, imply that he supposes you will not give what he asks at first; and that the price ultimately agreed upon will be the result of a long negotiation. He is in no hurry; nor, as I can show, is he without conscience. I bought a pair of bracelets of one Mohammed Adamanhoury, in the Khan Khaleel. I had liked the appearance of the bracelets, and I had asked the price. It did not occur to me at the moment that I was in Cairo, or perhaps what was the regular practice in transactions of this sort in Cairo. Perhaps I had fallen into this temporary oblivion, because the conversation and bearing of Mohammed were pleasant. I had brought him a little souvenir from an Englishman who had travelled throughout Syria with him, and knew his many estimable qualities. Mohammed’s beard was just beginning to be grizzled with age, so he had had time to see the world, and to know it. His complexion was fair for Egypt, a pale yellowish brown. His features, singly, and in their general expression, were good. His shawl-turban, and shawl-sash, and all his get up were unexceptionable. His voice and manner were as smooth as oil. His style of conversation perceptibly flowery and complimentary; but that is the manner of his people. I should myself of all things have liked to have travelled through the East with him. It would have been very pleasant at the time; and not unpleasant afterwards to be one’s self remembered, and talked of, as he talked of my friend whom, a year or two back, he had accompanied in his wanderings. But about the bracelets: I had given, without hesitation or comment, what he asked. A friend, I was travelling with, finding me at his shop, and seeing what I had bought, would like to have a pair of the same kind of bracelets. He asked the price. I told him. ‘No,’ interposed Mohammed, addressing himself to my companion, ‘your friend gave all I asked; and, therefore, I must name a less price to you.’ Conscience is then not extinguished utterly in those who ask, at first, for the goods they are selling more than the cost price, plus the legitimate profit (if there be such a thing as legitimate profit). Mohammed Adamanhoury of the Khan Khaleel is my demonstration.