Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/793

769 CAIBO.] EGYPT 769 from Syene, a distance by the river, on winch they were doubtless floated, of more than 600 miles. Bearing in mind this circumstance, and the difficulty of both working and sculpturing so hard a material, this temple must be considered to be one of the most costly in the country. The earliest name which has been found here is that of Nekht-har-heb (Dynasty XXX.), but the most common one is that of Ptolemy Philadelphus. A little to the south of this site, on the same bank, is the small town of Semennood, anciently Sebennytus; and a short distance farther, on the same side, is the village of Aboo-Seer, the ancient Busiris. named after Osiris, who, with Isis, was here worshipped. Herodotus mentions among the great festivals that of Isis held at Busiris, but this was more probably kept at Iseum, which was not far. For a long distance there is nothing of interest until we reach Tel- Atreeb, where the site of the town of Athribis is marked by high mounds, with remains of ancient houses and some blocks of stone. To the eastward of the Damietta branch, in the broad cultivated tract or the desert beyond, are some places worthy of note. The most eastern of these is the site of Pelusium, which was, in the times of the Pharaohs of Dynasty XXVI., the key of Egypt towards Palestine. No important remains have been discovered here. Between this site and the Damietta branch are the mounds of Tanis, or Zoan, Z AN, ZAK, where are considerable remains of the great temple, the most remarkable of which are several fallen obelisks, some of which are broken. From their inscriptions, and those of other blocks, it has been ascer tained that the temple was as ancient as the time of Dynasty XII., and was much beautified by Ramses II. and other kings of that time and the subsequent period. Tanis was on the eastern bank of the Tanitic branch of the Nile, now called the Canal of the El-Mo izz. On the same side of the same branch, but far to the south, was the city of Bubastis, PE-BAST, the site of which is indicated by very lofty mounds, in which may be traced the remains of its great temple, which was entirely of red granite. Here was held the festival of the goddess Bast, or Bubastis, which attracted great crowds of pilgrims, and is ranked by Herodotus first of the festivals of Egypt. Not far south, and on the borders of the desert, is Bilbeys, which was a place of some importance as a frontier-town in the time of the Eiyoobee princes. Still farther south are the mounds of Onion, the Jewish city founded by the high priest Onias, where was a temple closed by Vespasian not long after the overthrow of Jerusalem. The site is called Tell-el- Yahoodeeyeh, or &quot; The Mound of the Jewess.&quot; At the point of the Delta is the unfinished barrage, which, by crossing both branches of the river, will regulate the inundation above and below this point. The river here becomes broader than in its divided state, and long continues so. A little south of the point of the Delta, on the eastern bank of the river, near the village of El- Matareeyeh, not far north of Cairo, is the site of the ancient Heliopolis, or On, AN, the City of the Sun, marked by a solitary obelisk, and crude brick ridges formed by the ruins of a massive wall. The obelisk bears the name of Usurtesen I., the second king of Dynasty XII., in the simple inscription which runs down each of its sides. It is of red granite, and nearly 70 feet in height. The city was famous rather for the learning of its college than for its size, and the temple of the sun was held in high veneration. Many famous Greek philosophers studied here, and much of their earliest knowledge of natural science was no doubt derived from their Egyptian instructors. Boolak, the port of Cairo, is a flourishing town, having two remarkable mosques. It was built A.H. 713, in the reign of the sultan Mohammad Ibn Kala-oon. Here M. Mariette has founded the national &quot; Musde Boulaq,&quot; a splendid collection of Egyptian antiquities. Cairo is the fourth Muslim capital of Egypt ; the site of one of those that have preceded it is, for the most part, included within its walls, while the other two were a littla to the south. Amr, the Muslim conqueror of the country, founded El-Fustat, the oldest of these, close to the fortress of Egyptian Babylon, the seat of government at that time. Its name signifies &quot; the Tent,&quot; as it was built where Amr had pitched his tent. The new town speedily became a place of importance, and was the residence of the Naibs, or lieutenants, appointed by the orthodox and Ommiade caliphs. It received the name of Masr, properly Misr, which was also applied by the Arabs to Memphis and to Cairo. It declined after the foundation of El-Kahireh, but never became altogether deserted, for a small town, called Masr El- Ateekah, or &quot; Old Masr,&quot; occupies, in the present day, part of what was its area in its time of prosperity. Shortly after the overthrow of the Ommiade Dynasty, and the establishment of the Abbasee, the city of El- Askar was founded (A.H. 133) by Suleyman, the general who subju gated the country, and became the capital and the residence of the successive lieutenants of the Abbasee caliphs. El- Askar was a small town adjacent to El-Fustat, of which it was a kind of suburb. Its site is now entirely desolate. The third capital, El-Katae, or El-Kataye&quot;, was founded about A.H. 2GO, by Ahmad Ibn-Tooloon, as his capital. It continued the royal residence of his successors ; but not long after the fall of the dynasty, and the subsequent Ikhsheedees, the seat of government was transferred by the Fatimees to a new city, El-Kahireh. El-Katae, which had been sacked on the overthrow of the Tooloonees, rapidly decayed. A part of the present Cairo occupies its site, and contains its great mosque, that of Ahmad Ibn-Tooloon. G6har el-Kaid, the conqueror of Egypt for the Fatimee caliph El-Mo izz, founded a new capital, A.H. 358, which was named El-Kahireh, that is, &quot; the Victorious,&quot; a name corrupted into Cairo. This town occupied about a fourth part, the north-eastern, of the present metropolis. By degrees it became greater than El-Fustat, and took from, it the name of Misr, or Masr, which is applied to it by the modern Egyptians. It continually increased, so as to include the site of El-Katae to the south, and of the old town of El-Maks to the west. The famous Saladin built the Citadel on the lowest point of the mountain to the east, which immediately overlooked El-Katae, and he partly walled round the towns and large gardens within the space now called Cairo. Under the prosperous rule of the Memlook sultans this great tract was filled with habitations ; a large suburb to the north, the Hoseyrieeyeh, was added ; and the town of BooUk was founded. After the Turkish conquest (A.D. 1517) the metropolis decayed, but its limits were the same; with the present dynasty it has somewhat recovered. Cairo is of an irregular oblong form. Its greatest length is about three miles, and its average breadth about a mile and a half, and its dimensions do not fall very much short of these in any part. M. Jacotin (Description de I jZyypte, xviii. ii. Ill) estimates the superficies of Cairo at 793 hectares, or about 3 square miles. This surface is not, how ever, entirely occupied by houses, for it contains the Citadel and various extensive gardens and open spaces, as well as lakes. Most of the streets are extremely narrow, and the markets generally crowded, so that the stranger usually acquires a delusive idea of the density of the popu lation. Mr Lane states the population to have been 240,000 before the great plague of 1835, and adds that the deficiency, equal to not less than one-third of the inhabit ants, caused by that terrible visitation, would be speedily supplied from the villages. (Modern Egyptians, lutroduc- VII. - 97