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The Old Arab Streets of Cairo 143
half-river population is engaged in many occupations which
are unfamiliar to the European eye, and prizes to the
kodaker. It is a great advantage that the poor Egyptian
should not mind being kodaked, though he likes to make
money out of it when he can. There is the shipbuildingyard,
for instance, where Nile boats are built of rough
pieces of wood not much bigger than bricks, nailed together,
and the shipbuilders do their sawing and so on by
the upside-down methods of the Orient. Apart from its
unspoiled Arab life and buildings, old Cairo has a super-
lative interest in its magnificent old Coptic churches, its
Roman ruins, its proximity to the most ancient mosque in
Cairo, and its place in history from the date when it was
founded as the river outpost of ancient Heliopolis, to the
dates when its Arab conquerors founded their first capital at
Fustat, and three centuries later burnt it to prevent it
becoming a prize to the Crusaders.
There is an Arab quarter with a very holy mosque, that of
Seyyida Zeynab, on the road from old Cairo to the Citadel.
But it is not rich in old buildings. For them one must wait
till one gets to Katai, the quarter round the mosques of Ibn
Tulun and Kait Bey, the Gamamise and the Hilmiya, and
the quarter of the bazars and its vicinity. All the great
mosques lie there : all the mameluke houses are there ; there
the bulk of the Cairo Arabs live and perform the amusing
operations of their every-day existence. There we have
streets and streets of the undiluted Orient :
this is where
Cairo is an unspoiled Arab City of the Middle Ages, with
stately dwelling streets of lofty houses still spell-bound in
dignity and calm, and with covered slXks seething with the
life of natives at work and shopping.
This part of Cairo is one of the most delightful places I ever
was in : for three months I went to it nearly every day,
attended by AH, an English-speaking Arab of the SUks, who
pointed out little bits of life to me, and took me into all sorts
of native buildings and institutions, which I should never have
had the impudence to enter alone.
This is the Cairo where water-sellers take the place of