Egypt -- Description and travel -- Juvenile literature
We first turned down the chief street of the city, called Moskee; and
from it wended our way towards one of the oldest bazaars in Cairo. As we
went along, we were much struck with the beautifully carved woodwork of
the houses, and with the curious overhanging windows.
The children were delighted, too, with the gay confusion of the streets.
People were there dressed in every variety of colour. Egyptian ladies,
enveloped from head to foot in blue silk mantles and white veils, which
left nothing but their eyes to be seen, were riding on high donkeys,
preceded by their attendants. Then there were Mamelukes, in their
dresses of richly braided cloth; Copts, in dark turbans; Mecca Arabs,
with flashing eyes, and heads wreathed with folds of snowy muslin;
majestic Mograbbyns, in their white burnouses; Caireen merchants, in
silken robes.
And the noise! Such shouting, screaming, pushing! Donkey-boys and
others, each trying to make the best path for his own animal through the
crowd of horses, asses, camels, dromedaries, which filled the narrow
streets.
We threaded our way to the southern gate of the city, called Bab
Zuweyleh.
"What are those people doing?" Hugh asked.
He pointed to some people who were resting their heads against the
hinges of a large iron-bound door, fastened back to the wall. Mohammed
told us that these people had had headaches, and were waiting for them
to be charmed away by the good spirits who dwelt behind the door. He
showed us that the door was covered with metal plates, and that every
crevice of them was full of nails, driven in by persons who had had
headache, that they might be cured. Besides the nails, a great number of
teeth had been crammed in by persons who had suffered from toothache.
Their faith is a lesson to us, whose hearts are less ready to trust in
the God who reigneth in the heavens, than the hearts of these poor
heathen are to trust the gods of their imagination.
[Illustration: CURE FOR THE TOOTHACHE.]
From the gate Bab Zuweyleh we went to the citadel. Here we were to see
the palace of Saladin.
"What! the great Saladin who fought with Richard Coeur de Lion?" Lucy
asked.
"Yes, that very Saladin."
"Delightful! the next best thing to seeing Saladin himself," cried Hugh.
Hugh and Lucy were impatient to see a real palace like those in old
eastern tales; we all felt a thrill of excitement, expecting something
of Oriental grandeur. Great was our disappointment! There was nothing
left of the renowned Saladin's palace except a few grand fragments of
its granite pillars, and some blocks of granite covered with
hieroglyphics. We found another memorial of him in "Joseph's well,"
which is also in the citadel, and is now generally considered to have
been called after the great Saracen, whose name was Yussuf
Salah-ed-Deen, and not after the patriarch Joseph.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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