rimitive in outline,
usually show the train of camels, the escort of soldiers, wonderful wild
beasts in fighting attitudes, nondescript birds and trees, and garlands
of flowers. One comes upon these Mecca doorways very frequently in the
old quarters. Sometimes the gay tints show that the journey was a recent
one; often the faded outlines speak of the zeal of an ancestor.

THE REIGNING DYNASTY

[Illustration: THE ROAD TO CHOUBRA.

From a photograph by Sebah, Cairo]

While in the city of the Khedive, if one has a wish for the benediction
of a far-stretching view, he must go to the Citadel. The prospect from
this hill has been described many times. One sees all Cairo, with her
minarets; the vivid green of the plain, with the Nile winding through
it; the desert meeting the verdure and stretching back to the red hills;
lastly, the pyramids, beginning with those of Gizeh, near at hand, and
ending, far in the distance, with the hazy outlines of those of Abouseer
and Sakkarah. The Citadel was built by Saladin in the twelfth century.
Saladin's palace, which formed part of it, was demolished in 1824 to
make room for the modern mosque, whose large dome and attenuated
minarets are now the last objects which fade away when the traveller
leaves Cairo behind him. This rich Mohammedan temple was the work of
Mehemet Ali, the founder of the present dynasty. It is not beautiful, in
spite of its alabaster, but Mehemet himself would probably admire it,
could he return to earth (the mosque was not completed until after
his death), as he had to the full that bad taste in architecture and art
which, for unexplained reasons, so often accompanies a new birth of
progress in an old country. Mehemet was born in Roumelia; he entered the
Turkish army, and after attaining the rank of colonel he was sent to
Egypt. Here he soon usurped all power, and had it not been for the
intervention of Russia and France, and later of England and Austria, it
is probable that he would have succeeded in freeing himself and the
country whose leadership he had grasped from the domination of Turkey.
Every one has heard something of the terrible massacre of the Memlooks
by his order, in this Citadel, in 1811. The Memlooks were opposed to all
progress, and Mehemet was bent upon progress. Freed from their power,
this ferocious liberator built canals; he did his best to improve
agriculture; he established a printing-office and founded schools; he
sent three hundred boys