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

GAMA TAYLOON. 71
of danger to pick my way upwards amongst the
loose perpendicular steps, and had not courage to
accompany my companions to the upper gallery.
However, from the second one I saw enough to
enchant me in the view below, and had also an
opportunity of hearing from our cicerone, as I
rested myself upon the crumbling staircase, the
reason of its having been, as it were, turned
inside out—and here is the story, although, mark
me, I do not vouch for the truth of it.
One day, during the period that the mosque
was building under the directions of the Caliph
Ahmed-ebn-e'-Tayloon, his Vizier, who, it would
appear, was privileged to utter plain truths to his
royal master, found him twirling a narrow slip
of parchment round his finger, and remonstrated
with him upon the folly of wasting his time in
so puerile a manner, instead of devoting it to
public affairs. The Caliph, stung by the reproach,
and desirous at all hazards of rescuing himself
from the mortifying inference which the Vizier's
words carried with them, replied promptly, that,
although his employment indeed wore the sem-
blance of thoughtless idleness, it was not wholly
without use or meaning, as he was deliberating
within himself whether the chief minaret of the
mosque then building should be distinguished by