A number of small streets having lately been demolished in this quarter, the approach to the mosque lies across a desolate open space littered with débris, but destined to be laid out as a public square. With this desirable end in view, some half-dozen workmen were lazily loading as many camels with rubble, which is the Arab way of carting rubbish. If they persevere, and the minister of public works continues to pay their wages with due punctuality, the ground will perhaps get cleared in eight or ten years’ time. Driving up with some difficulty to the foot of the great steps, which were crowded with idlers smoking and sleeping, we observed a long and apparently fast-widening fissure reaching nearly from top to bottom of the main wall of the building, close against the minaret. It looked like just such a rent as might be caused by a shock of earthquake, and, being still new to the east, we wondered the government had not set to work to mend it. We had yet to learn that nothing is ever mended in Cairo. Here, as in Constantinople, new buildings spring up apace, but the old, no matter how venerable, are allowed to molder away, inch by inch, till nothing remains but a heap of ruins. Going up the steps and through a lofty hall, up some more steps and along a gloomy corridor, we came to the great court, before entering which, however, we had to take off our boots and put on slippers brought for the purpose. The first sight of this court is an architectural surprise. It is like nothing one has seen before, and its beauty equals its novelty. Imagine an immense marble quadrangle, open to the sky and inclosed within lofty walls, with, at each side, a vast recess framed in by a single arch. The quadrangle is more than one hundred feet square, and the walls are more than one hundred feet high. Each recess forms a spacious hall for rest and prayer, and all are matted; but that at the eastern end is wider and considerably deeper than the other three, and the noble arch that incloses it like the proscenium of a splendid stage, measures, according to Fergusson, sixty-nine feet five inches in the span. It looks much larger. This principal hall, the floor of which is raised one step at the upper end, measures ninety feet in depth and ninety in height. The dais is covered with prayer-rugs, and contains the holy niche and the pulpit of the preacher. We observed that those who came up here came only to pray. Having prayed, they either went away or turned aside into one of the other recesses to rest. There was a charming fountain in the court with a dome roof as light and fragile looking as a big bubble, at which each worshiper performed his ablutions on coming in. This done, he left his slippers on the matting and trod the carpeted dais barefoot.