A pilgrimage to the temples and tombs of Egypt, Nubia, and ...

70 GAMA TAYLOON.
mosque erected on the site of Cairo, having been
founded a. d. 879, just ninety years before any
other part of the city was commenced. It is
said to have been built ujion the model of the
Caaba at Mecca, and is remarkable for its fine
pointed arches, double rows of which still remain
standing, although ruin has laid its hand upon
some of them, and menaces the whole. These
pointed arches, and the date of their construc-
tion, go far to decide the question of the Sara-
cens having been the inventors of that style of
architecture ; and the reasoning of Sir Gardiner
Wilkinson strikes me to be conclusive on this
subject ; for, as he observes, that the pointed arch
was not known in Europe until three centuries
later, it is most probable that it was then intro-
duced by the Crusaders, who borrowed the idea
from the Saracenic structures they had seen in
the East. The exterior minaret of the Tayloon
mosque affords from its gallery the finest pano-
ramic view of Cairo, superior even to that from
the citadel , as it includes the citadel itself, which
forms a noble feature in the scene. The ascent to
the gallery is by an eMerior spiral staircase (an
exception to the general rule of minaret archi-
tecture, which places the staircase in the interior),
but in so ruinous a state that I found it a service