go as
fast as a horse usually trots, and seem never to tire. The common people
lie down on the sidewalk, beside the road, in any nook or corner, to
sleep off fatigue, just as a dog might do. Every public square has its
fountain, and there are two hundred in Cairo.

The bazaars present a novel aspect. Here an old bearded Turk offers for
sale odors, curious pastes and essences, with kohl for shading about the
eyes, and henna dye for the fingers. Another has various ornaments of
sandal wood, delicately wrought fans, and other trifles. His next-door
neighbor, whose quarters are only a degree more dingy, offers pipes,
curiously made, with carved amber mouthpieces, and others with long,
flexible, silken tubes. Turbaned crowds stroll leisurely about. Now a
strong and wiry Bedouin passes, leading his horse and taking count of
everything with his sharp, black eyes, and now a Nile boatman. Yonder is
an Abyssinian slave, and beyond is an Egyptian trader, with here and
there a Greek or a Maltese. Amid it all one feels curious as to where
Aladdin's uncle may be just now, with his new lamps to exchange for old
ones. We will ascend the loftiest point of this Arabian city to obtain a
more comprehensive view.

The mosque of Mehemet Ali, with its tapering minarets, overlooks Cairo,
and is itself a very remarkable and beautiful edifice. This spacious
building is lined throughout with Oriental alabaster, the exterior being
covered with the same costly material. It contains the sarcophagus of
Mehemet Ali, the most enlightened of modern rulers, before which lamps
are burning perpetually. The interior of this mosque is the most
effective, architecturally, of any temple in the East. There is a height
and breadth, and a solemn dignity in its aspect, which cannot fail to
impress every visitor. The exterior is much less striking, yet it is
admirably balanced and harmonized. The situation of the mosque commands
one of the most interesting views that can be conceived of. The city,
with its countless minarets and domed mosques, its public buildings, and
tree-adorned squares, its section of mud-colored houses and terraced
roofs, lies in the form of a crescent at the visitor's feet; while the
plains of Lower Egypt stretch far away in all directions. The tombs of
the Mamelukes (a body of mounted soldiery of Egypt massacred by Mehemet
Ali) lie close at hand, full of historic suggestiveness, and just beyond
stands the lonely column of Heliopolis, four t