And at last from Madi-nat-al-Fayyum, with the first pilgrims
starting for Mecca, I returned to the
Great city, determined to seek
in it once more for the fascinations it used to hold, and perhaps
still held in the hidden ways where modern feet, nearly always in a
hurry, had seldom time to penetrate.
A mist hung over the land. Out of it, with a sort of stern energy,
there came to my ears loud hymns sung by the pilgrim voices - hymns in
which, mingled with the enthusiasm of devotees en route for the
holiest shrine of their faith, there seemed to sound the resolution of
men strung up to confront the fatigues and the dangers of a great
journey through a wild and unknown country. Those hymns led my feet to
the venerable mosques of Cairo, the city of mosques, guided me on my
lesser pilgrimage among the cupolas and the colonnades, where grave
men dream in the silence near marble fountains, or bend muttering
their prayers beneath domes that are dimmed by the ruthless fingers of
Time. In the buildings consecrated to prayer and to meditation I first
sought for the magic that still lurks in the teeming bosom of Cairo.
Long as I had sought it elsewhere, in the brilliant bazaars by day,
and by night in the winding alleys, where the dark-eyed Jews looked
stealthily forth from the low-browed doorways; where the Circassian
girls promenade, gleaming with golden coins and barbaric jewels; where
the air is alive with music that is feverish and antique, and in
strangely lighted interiors one sees forms clad in brilliant
draperies, or severely draped in the simplest pale-blue garments,
moving in languid dances, fluttering painted figures, bending,
swaying, dropping down, like the forms that people a dream.
In the bazaars is the passion for gain, in the alleys of music and
light is the passion for pleasure, in the mosques is the passion for
prayer that connects the souls of men with the unseen but strongly
felt world. Each of these passions is old, each of these passions in
the heart of Islam is fierce. On my return to Cairo I sought for the
hidden fire that is magic in the dusky places of prayer.
A mist lay over the city as I stood in a narrow byway, and gazed up at
a heavy lattice, of which the decayed and blackened wood seemed on
guard before some tragic or weary secret. Before me was the entrance
to the mosque of Ibn-Tulun, older than any mosque in Cairo save only
the mosque of Amru. It is approached by a flight of steps, on each
side of which stand old, impenetrable houses. Above my head, strung
across from one house to the other, were many little red and yellow
flags ornamented with gold lozenges. These were to bear witness that
in a couple of days' time, from the great open place beneath the
citadel of Cairo, the Sacred Carpet was to set out on its long journey
to Mecca.
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