Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/504

 410 NOETH-EAST APEICA. pour forth their Arab, Negro, Abyssinian, Beja, Somili, and Nubian denizens on the public squares and into the great plain near the suburb of Bulaq, where the sheikh of the dervishes passes on horseback over a layer of human bodies. The noble animal resists at first, but the bridle being held by two slaves, he is forced to follow them over this carpet of living flesh. The presence of English troops sum- moned to take part in this feast in the year 1884 served to remind the Mussulmans that henceforth the city of Amru was in the hands of the infidel. The most remarkable monuments of Cairo are its mosques and tombs. Of the four hundred sacred edifices scattered over the city, some are amongst the very finest in the Mohammedan world. The mosque of Tulun, which formed part of the Fost&t settlement before the foundation of Cairo, although falling to ruins, still pre- serves the beauty imparted by the noble simplicity of the original plan — a large open court surrounded on three sides by a double peristyle and leading to a sanctuary with four aisles and pointed arcades built of date wood. Unfortunately the galleries, decorated with charming arabesques, have been closed up and converted into mean refuges for the sick and insane. Sultan Hassan's mosque, the finest in Cairo, and indicated from a distance by its lofty minaret, is threatened, like that of Tulun, with total destruction. At sight of the tottering windows of its high outer walls the visitor almost hesitates to enter the court where the cool fountains still spatter, or to cross the threshold of the sanctuary and lateral aisles beneath the vast porticos tenanted by flocks of birds. The El- Azhar, or " Flowery " mosque, was also originally a simple court enclosed by porticos. But to the primitive structure have been added numerous other buildings, for El- Azhar is now at once a university, a library, a hostelry for studious travellers, a blind asylum, and a refuge for the poor. The roof of the sanctuary is supported by 380 marble, granite, and porphyry columns, some of which formerly embellished the Roman temples in Egypt. Round the court the colonnades are reserved for students, who are here grouped according to their several nationalities. From Marocco to India, from the Niger to the Oxus, all the peoples of Islam are represented in this university, which claims to be the oldest in the world. As manj'^ as twelve thousand students, exclusive of the free attendants, here study the Koran, jurisprudence, mathematics, and the Arabic language, under the direction of two hundred professors. In the liitcdk, or group of buildings disposed round the aisles, there are also about a dozen preparatory schools, each with thirty or forty scholars, besides a special school for the blind.* Another mosque, that of Sultan KaUun, is almost entirely utilised as a mad- house. That of Mohammed Ali, situated within the citadel, is certainly a very sumptuous edifice, with its transparent alabaster pillars and pavement; but its very wealth of ornamentation serves only to illustrate the bad taste of its builder. „ of the Shafeh rite 500. „ 100 „ „ Malekiterile 4,000. „ 74 „ „ Hanefite rite 1,500. „ 37 « „ Hambalite rito 25. „ 1
 * Stmients registered at El- Azhar in 1883 . . . 12,025 . Prr.fessirs, 216 •