We, Therefore, Reluctantly Relinquished The Idea, And
Contented Ourselves With What We Could See Of Cairo.
Our first visit was directed to the Citadel, a place which, I do not
scruple to say, was to me quite as interesting as any of the monuments
of ancient art that Egypt contains.
The remains of ages long past, and
whose history is involved in unfathomable obscurity, excite our wonder
and admiration, and fill us with an almost painful curiosity to draw
aside the veil which time has thrown around them, and to learn secrets
that all the learning of man has hitherto been unable to unfold.
The citadel of Cairo, on the contrary, has been the theatre of
comparatively recent events; it is filled with recollections of the
hero whose exploits, narrated by the most eloquent pens, have charmed
us in our childhood, and still continue to excite interest in our
breasts - the Sultan Saladin. Here are the remains of a palace which he
once inhabited, and here is a well which bears his name. Who could sit
under the broken pillars of that roofless palace, or drink the water
from the deep recesses of that well, without allowing their thoughts
to wander back to the days of the Crusades, those chivalric times, in
which love, and war, and religion, swayed the hearts and the actions
of men; when all that was honoured and coveted was to be found in a
soldier of the cross, and when half-frantic enthusiasts, pursuing the
vainest of hopes, the recovery of the Holy Land, brought away with
them what they did not go to seek, the arts, and learning, and science
of the East!
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