Page:"Round the world." - Letters from Japan, China, India, and Egypt (IA roundworldletter00fogg 0).pdf/273

 patriarch. He rides a easy going mule and seems absorbed in holy meditation, But at the intersection of a narrow sile street, he omnes iu coutacth with a mettled Arab, ruden by a young fellow ata sharp canter, and over goes ol! Abra- ham sprawling in the dust. This occurrence snot so unusual as to crnse uny excitement, and it is only the stranger who laughs at the eatastrephe. He pieks hiniself up, re- mounts his mule more astoulshed, per- laps, than his rider, and jogs on again, as if nothing had happened. Near by is a barber shop where, if I understood Arabic, 1 could hear the latest Caireen scandal, and in the cafe over the way wstory-teller is surromuled by a crowd ofeager listencrs, as in the times of the Caliphs and the Arabian nights. Tor half'an hour I watched the passing throng, and long fer the pencil of a Itogarth or a Nast to fix on paper the comical scenes.

Then with “Billy Boy” and the “Gen- eral,” I take a quieter route toward the Citadel, whieh is located on a high bluff overlooking the whole city and its environs. The glistening domes and minarets of the four hundred mosques of which Cairo boasts are at our feel; to the eust are seen the ob- élisk of Heliopolis aud the tombs of the Mame- Jukes; on the west and south are the ruins of old Cairo, the grand acqueduct, the island and groves of Rhoda; while further on across the Nile are the pyramids of Ghizuh and Saklarra, and beyond these the great Lybian desert. Close by is the famous “Mamelhuikes’ teap,” where tifty years ego that bloody old tyrant, Mahomet Ali lurying enticed these unruly ehicts into the citadel, shut the gates and slaughtered them all but one, Emil Bey, who dashed his horse ever the low parapet, and dowu the face of the wall, forty feet, escaping with his life, although his horse was killed. As 1 looked ever the wall down the steop precipice, the feat seemed 2 most daring one, aud the es- expe almost tniraculous, The tombs of the Mamelukes are magnificent mouuments of these desceudants of thee Cireassiaui givls, torn from their mountain homex by ruthless slaye-lealers, But their sons lived to rule with iron luuid the offspring of those who srought their mother? shame, maul a. bold warriors twice to hurl baek tte Tartars trom Enrope under the terce Tamerlane.

Tn the center of the citulel is the mosque of Mohamet Ali, the finest in b. pt, wl second onty to that of 5 phin at Constan- tinople. At the entrance an old priest takes