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

74 MOSQUE OF AMR.
private edifices are allowed to fall uncared for
to decay, this mosque enjoys the privilege of
occasional repairs, being shielded from destruc-
tion upon the strength of a popular superstition,
which attributes to some unearthly revelation
the announcement, that whenever the mosque
of Amr should fall into ruins, the Moslem re-
ligion would fall with it. And we actually found
it under repair, and full of workmen, all at the
Viceroy's expense, who has been roused out
of his usual apathy about such matters, I sup-
pose, by a determination that the prophecy
should not be realized during his own lifetime
at least.
I was much interested in observing the amaz-
ing step that had been made in Arab ar-
chitecture, between the building of the mosque
of Amr, (which, as I have already told you, was
the first Mahometan place of worship that was
built in Egypt, and constructed within the first
hundred years of the Hegira,) and the mosque of
Tayloon, which was the second constructed here,
and dates about 400 years later. The first,
simple, almost rude, in its architecture, denotes
the work of a people still in the infancy of the
arts ; while the latter exhibits all the noble and
airy elegance of plan, and the careful finish of