Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/498

 406 NORTH-EAST AFRICA. left bank of the Nile, Cairo would form a simple northern extension of Ikfemphis. It would even seem more natural that the capital, like nearly all the other cities of Middle Egypt, should stand on the west side, which comprises over three-fourths of the arable lands, and which gives more easy access to Alexandria, the chief out- port of the country. But Cairo is not an Egyptian foundation. It was built by Asiatic conquerors, who naturally could not think of founding their chief strong- hold on the wrong side of the river for them. Thus the very position of Cairo on the right bank of the Nile suffices to show that Egypt is a conquered land. The name of El-Kahirah, or the Victorious, officially given to the capital of Egypt, is not current amongst the people themselves. 3Iasr, the old name of the whole country, to which is often added the epithet of " Mother of the World," is the expression more usually employed in speaking of the city. Nothing but a small fort bearing the name of Babelun (Babylonia) occupied a site a little above the present capital down to the nineteenth year of the Hegira, when it was captured by Amru. After this event it began to extend northwards by the addition of the El-Fostat, or " Tent," which afterwards became the Masr el- Atikah, or " Old Cairo." Again besieged and reduced, over three centuries afterwards, it continued still to expand in the same direction by absorbing a third quarter, the so-called military encampment of El-Kaireh. Here was developed the modem city, whose name has been slightly modified to Cairo and other forms in the European idioms. . Towards the north-west the right bank of the Nile is skirted by the wretched hovels of Bnlaq, a large and industrial suburb now connected with the city by a new avenue lined with buildings. The old walls have been in great part destroyed or overlapped by new structures ; but they are still standing towards the east and south, half buried amid heaps of refuse. The cliffs of the Jebel-Mokattam extend to the south-east angle of the city, where their advanced spurs are crowned with the citadel, which was occupied by the British forces in 1883, immediately after the battle of Tel- el-Kebir. From this eminence, flanked by sustaining walls and ramparts, a view is commanded of the whole city, with its cupolas and minarets, its party-coloured buildings, its groves and gardens. Round this city of bright colours and throbbing life, stretches the grey and silent plain overlooked from a distance by the pyramids. Cairo had been built on the bank of the Nile ; but since the tenth century the stream has been displaced, and until recently the city was separated from the river by a belt of groves and gardens, nearly two miles broad in some places. It is, however, traversed in its entire length by the narrow Khalig Canal, which runs dry for a part of the year. The Ismailieh Canal, another and broader channel, deep enough to remain flooded throughout the year, runs north-west of the city in the direction of Suez, through the Wady-Tumilat. The Nile, 1,320 feet wide between its embankments, is here crossed by a modern iron bridge resting on stone foundations, and continued westwards by a long viaduct across a branch flooded during the inundations. But for the palms fringing the left bank, the dahabiyeh and other craft moored along the quays, one njight almost fancy at the sight of this bridge that he was surveying the outlying quarters oi some European city. The whole