The tombs are strewed over a
great expanse, among the vast mountains of rubbish (the
accumulations of many centuries) which surround the city.
The
ground, unlike the Turkish "cities of the dead," which are made so
beautiful by their dark cypresses, has nothing to sweeten
melancholy, nothing to mitigate the odiousness of death.
Carnivorous beasts and birds possess the place by night, and now in
the fair morning it was all alive with fresh comers - alive with
dead. Yet at this very time, when the plague was raging so
furiously, and on this very ground, which resounded so mournfully
with the howls of arriving funerals, preparations were going on for
the religious festival called the Kourban Bairam. Tents were
pitched, and SWINGS HUNG FOR THE AMUSEMENT OF CHILDREN - a ghastly
holiday; but the Mahometans take a pride, and a just pride, in
following their ancient customs undisturbed by the shadow of death.
I did not hear, whilst I was at Cairo, that any prayer for a
remission of the plague had been offered up in the mosques. I
believe that however frightful the ravages of the disease may be,
the Mahometans refrain from approaching Heaven with their
complaints until the plague has endured for a long space, and then
at last they pray God, not that the plague may cease, but that it
may go to another city!
A good Mussulman seems to take pride in repudiating the European
notion that the will of God can be eluded by eluding the touch of a
sleeve.
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