hey should find him ascending the winding staircase of the
minaret. In the course of a few days a good-natured person gave the
alarm, and told the two blind men that somebody had just entered the
doorway on the roof of the mosque by which the minaret is ascended; one
of the muezzins therefore ascended the minaret, armed with a sharp
dagger, and the other waited at the narrow door below to secure the game
whom his companion should drive out of the cover. The young man was
surprised by the muezzin while he was looking over the lower gallery of
the minaret, but escaping from him he ran up the stairs to the upper
gallery: here he was followed by his enemy, who cried to the old man at
the bottom to be ready, for he had found the rascal who had brought
such scandal on the mosque. The muezzin chased the intruder round the
upper gallery, and he slipped through the door and ran down again to the
lower one, where he waited till the muezzin passed him on the stairs,
then taking off his shoes he followed him lightly and silently till he
arrived near the bottom door, when he suddenly pushed the muezzin, who
had been up the minaret, against the one who stood guard below; the two
blind men, each thinking he had got hold of the villain for whom he was
in search, seized each other by the throat and engaged in mortal combat
with their daggers, taking advantage of which the other escaped before
the blind men had found out their mistake. At the next hour of prayer,
their well-known voices not being heard as usual, some of the attendants
at the mosque went up upon the roof to see what had happened, when they
found the muezzins, who were just able to relate the particulars of
their mistake before they died.

It was in the place of the Roumayli that the gallant band of the
Mameluke beys were assembled before they were entrapped and killed by
the present task-master of Egypt, Mohammed Ali Pasha. They ascended a
narrow passage between two high bastions, which led from the lower to
the upper gate. The lower gate was shut after they had passed, and they
were thus caught as in a trap. All of them were shot except one, who
leaped his horse over the battlements and escaped. This man became
afterwards a great ally of Mohammed Ali, and I have often seen him
riding about on a fine horse caparisoned with red velvet in the old
Mameluke style. On the wall in one part of this passage, towards the
inner gate, there is a square tablet containing a bas-relief