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The Old Arab Streets of Cairo 147
dealing in old brass. I have bought choice pieces here. But
the charm of the street lies in its beautiful buildings, hardly
important enough to be monuments, and in its placid native
life. The artist finds some of his choicest bits here. There
is one old mameluke house with three long tiers of niesh-
rebiydd oriels facing the street and a graciously arabesqued
courtyard ; another, in which the hand of the destroyer has
torn down one side- wall of the court, revealing screens and
ceilings of woodwork which no other house in Cairo can
boast. There is a bath with marble-panelled chambers and
marble fountains and arches, which would have done for a
Caliph of the Middle Ages ; and an old oil-mill with pointed
arches which ought to have belonged to Westminster Abbey.
The mosques are not on the grand scale, but they have
mellowed out of the perpendicular with age, and their facades
are graciously arabesqued and their courts old and romantic.
There is hardly anything in the street thought worthy of
mention by Baedeker or Murray, yet it is all paintable from
end to end.
The Haret-el-Merdani behind the great Merdani mosque,
has a couple of splendid old mansions ; the adjoining road,
leading down to the Suk of the Armourers, has several, but
both of them are too native to have any life in the streets.
The houses mostly belong to Arabs of the old school, who
keep their front doors shut and locked, whereas Cairo
generally, in the security of the British Occupation, leaves
its courts open to the passer-by. I speak from experience :
under All's audacious escort I tried to get into every courtyard
that gave hopes of having any architectural pretensions.
Streets like these are not easy to find, for commerce
has intruded into most of the streets which are rich in old
buildings, and the courtyards are the first things which are
turned into business premises. The Gamaliya is an example
of this ; few streets in Cairo are so rich in old buildings, but
hardly one of them is a private mansion any longer.
The mameluke houses may be taken as the type of the
best Arab mansions in Cairo. I only know one foreigner who
has had the sense to take one and do it up in the old style.