It Is The Proud
Cemetery Of The Mameluke Sultans, Whose Day Was Done In The Middle
Ages.
But if one looks closely, what disorder, what a mass of ruins there
are in this town - still a little fairylike - beaten this evening by the
squalls of winter.
The domes, the holy tombs, the minarets and
terraces, all are crumbling: the hand of death is upon them all. But
down there, in the far distance, near to that silver streak which
meanders through the plains, and which is the old Nile, the advent of
new times is proclaimed by the chimneys of factories, impudently high,
that disfigure everything, and spout forth into the twilight thick
clouds of black smoke.
The night is falling as we descend from the esplanade to return to our
lodgings.
We have first to traverse the old town of Cairo, a maze of streets
still full of charm, wherein the thousand little lamps of the Arab
shops already shed their quiet light. Passing through streets which
twist at their caprice, beneath overhanging balconies covered with
wooden trellis of exquisite workmanship, we have to slacken speed in
the midst of a dense crowd of men and beasts. Close to us pass women,
veiled in black, gently mysterious as in the olden times, and men of
unmoved gravity, in long robes and white draperies; and little donkeys
pompously bedecked in collars of blue beads; and rows of leisurely
camels, with their loads of lucerne, which exhale the pleasant
fragrance of the fields.
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