enchantment.

The walls are of a strange white marble streaked with yellow. The ground
is completely covered with carpets of a sombre red. In the vaults, very
elaborately wrought, nothing but blacks and gold: a background of black
bestrewn with golden roses, and bordered with arabesques like gold lace.
And from above hang thousands of gold chains supporting the vigil lamps
for the evening prayers. Here and there are people on their knees,
little groups in robe and turban, scattered fortuitously upon the red of
the carpets, and almost lost in the midst of the sumptuous solitude.

In an obscure corner lies Mehemet Ali, the prince adventurous and
chivalrous as some legendary hero, and withal one of the greatest
sovereigns of modern history. There he lies behind a grating of gold, of
complicated design, in that Turkish style, already decadent, but still
so beautiful, which was that of his epoch.

Through the golden bars may be seen in the shadow the catafalque of
state, in three tiers, covered with blue brocades, exquisitely faded,
and profusely embroidered with dull gold. Two long green palms freshly
cut from some date-tree in the neighbourhood are crossed before the door
of this sort of funeral enclosure. And it seems that around us is an
inviolable religious peace. . . .

But all at once there comes a noisy chattering in a Teutonic tongue--and
shouts and laughs! . . . How is it possible, so near to the great dead?
. . . And there enters a group of tourists, dressed more or less in the
approved "smart" style. A guide, with a droll countenance, recites to
them the beauties of the place, bellowing at the top of his voice like
a showman at a fair. And one of the travellers, stumbling in the sandals
which are too large for her small feet, laughs a prolonged, silly little
laugh like the clucking of a turkey. . . .

Is there then no keeper, no guardian of this holy mosque? And amongst
the faithful prostrate here in prayer, none who will rise and make
indignant protest? Who after this will speak to us of the fanaticism of
the Egyptians? . . . Too meek, rather, they seem to me everywhere. Take
any church you please in Europe where men go down on their knees
in prayer, and I should like to see what kind of a welcome would
be accorded to a party of Moslem tourists who--to suppose the
impossible--behaved so badly as these savages here.

Behind the mosque is an esplanade, and beyond that the palace. The
palace, as such, can sca