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

72 GAMA TAYLOON.
a staircase winding externally round it, in the
precise manner that the slip of parchment he
then held, wound round his finger. The Vizier
was silenced, and the Caliph to make good his
assertion, ordered the minaret to be constructed
as I have described.
One or two traditions of a far more ancient date
are connected with the site which Gama Tay-
loon occupies, and you shall judge how far they
are worthy of belief. The hill upon which the
mosque stands, is called Kalat-el-Kebsh, which
means in Arabic, the Citadel of the Ram, in com-
memoration of its being the spot where Abraham
sacrificed the ram instead of his son Ishmael,
w^hom the Arabs assert to have been the child
that the patriarch was about to immolate, and
not Isaac. The other tradition varies still more
widely from our Biblical records, inasmuch, as
that it pretends that the Ark of Noah is said to
have rested on a certain spot now enclosed with-
in one of the courts of the mosque, which re-
ceived the name of Gebel Oskoor, in conse-
quence of the thanksgiving Noah there oifered
to Heaven, for his rescue from the Deluge.
Although Gama Tayloon is the oldest mosque
in modern Cairo, there is a still more ancient one
in old Cairo,—the first Mahometan place of wor-