Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/508

 412 NORTH-EAST AFRICA. boasts of the pyramids and similar structures of unequalled solidity, may also claim to possess in its minarets edifices unrivalled for the elegance and delicacy of their- outline. The first city on the African continent in size and population, Cairo also takes the foremost place for its scientific institutions and art treasures. Besides the already described religious university of El-Azhar, and the hundreds of Arab schools attached to the mosques, the city contains excellent European schools, nearly all denominational — Catholic, Coptic, Melkite, Protestant, or Jewish. There are also a school of medicine and pharmacy, a public library, lecture-halls, an observa- tory, a valuable collection of maps and designs, unfortunately damaged when the place was occupied by the British, a geographical society, and other learned corpora- tions. BuLAQ, Hei.wan, Matarieh. But the glory of Cairo is its museum of antiquities, established in the suburb of Bulaq on the very embankment here skirting the right side of the Nile. This priceless collection, founded by Mariette, continued by Maspero, and already far too rich for the original building, presents, so to say, a complete and admirably illustrated course of Egyptian history and native art. Besides the thousand objects found in all museums, such as statues, steles, mummies, amulets, jewellery, papyri, it contains amongst other masterpieces the diorite statue of Khephren in a majestic and placid attitude, the wooden statue of the unknown person whom the Arabs have dubbed the Shiekh-el-Belod, or " Village Chief," the sphinxes of the Syksos, which so faithfully reproduce the type of those shepherd conquerors. In the court stands the tomb of Mariette, a black marble sarcophagus, standing at the foot of which the visitor beholds the mysterious stream flowing slowly by. Bulaq is the chief industrial centre of the capital. Here the Government possesses a large printing-office, military workshops, a foundry, and manufactory of small arms. The river traffic, which formerly had its docks and warehouses at Old Cairo, has now established its chief depots at Bulaq, where the stream is constantly covered with steamers, sailing vessels, and rowing boats. What remains of Fostdt, or Old Cairo, stands rather more than half a mile from the south-west suburb of Cairo, and is disposed along the right bank of a small branch of the Nile. The ancient splendour of the city is still recalled by a mosque surrounded by heaps of debris. This was the sanctuary erected by Amni in the twenty- first year of the Hegira under the eyes of Mohammed's personal followers. After those of the holy cities no other mosque is more venerated than this venerable monument, which, however, has been frequently restored. Some of the 230 columns which supix)rted the vaults of the galleries and sanctuary built round the central court have given way beneath the weight of the nave. The island which separates Old Cairo from the main channel, and which js mostly under cultivation, takes the name of Jeziret-el-Randah. Here a nephew of Saladin had founded the school of the " Baharites," or " Riverain People," who were the first Mameluks in Egypt. At the southern extremity of Randah stands the famous