Apart, however, from its poverty of design and detail, the Mosque of Amr is interesting as a point of departure in the history of Saracenic architecture. It was built by Amr Ebn el-As, the Arab conqueror of Egypt, in the twenty-first year of the hegira (A.D. 642), just ten years after the death of Mohammed; and it is the earliest Saracenic edifice in Egypt. We were glad, therefore, to have seen it for this reason, if for no other. But it is a barren, dreary place; and the glare reflected from all sides of the quadrangle was so intense that we were thankful to get away into the narrow streets beside the river. Here we presently fell in with a wedding procession consisting of a crowd of men, a band, and some three or four hired carriages full of veiled women, one of whom was pointed out as the bride. The bridegroom walked in the midst of the men, who seemed to be teasing him, drumming round him, and opposing his progress; while high above the laughter, the shouting, the jingle of tambourines and the thrumming of darabukkehs, was heard the shrill squeal of some instrument that sounded exactly like a bagpipe. It was a brilliant afternoon, and we ended our day’s work, I remember, with a drive on the Shubra road and a glance at the gardens of the khedive’s summer palace. The Shubra road is the Champs Elysées of Cairo, and is thronged every day from four to half-past six. Here little sheds of roadside cafés alternate with smart modern villas; ragged fellâheen on jaded donkeys trot side by side with elegant attachés on high-stepping Arabs; while tourists in hired carriages, Jew bankers in unexceptionable phaetons, veiled hareems in London built broughams, Italian shop-keepers in preposterously fashionable toilets, grave sheiks on magnificent Cairo asses, officers in frogged and braided frocks, and English girls in tall hats and close-fitting habits, followed by the inevitable little solemn-looking English groom, pass and repass, precede and follow each other, in one changing, restless, heterogeneous stream, the like of which is to be seen in no other capital in the world. The sons of the khedive drive here daily, always in separate carriages and preceded by four saïses and four guards. They are of all ages and sizes, from the hereditary prince, a pale, gentlemanly looking young man of four or five and twenty, down to one tiny, imperious atom of about six, who is dressed like a little man, and is constantly leaning out of the carriage window and shrilly abusing his coachman.[7]