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The Characteristics of the Gamia 157<br />

other decorations are also usually correspondingly rich, and<br />

their roofs are masses of colour, delightfully mellow where<br />

they have not been restored. Like the Cappella Reale at<br />

Palermo, the best mosques of the Kait Bey type leave hardly<br />

an inch of wall or floor undecorated. The band of windows<br />

round the base of the cupola, often of coloured glass set in<br />

small pieces in pierced plaster-work, sheds a chastened light.<br />

The tomb, for which the mosque was founded, generally<br />

stands under a dome beside or behind the liwdn.<br />

It is sometimes more richly decorated than the mosque<br />

itself, great features in the decoration being the noble in-<br />

scriptions from the Koran in the exquisite Arabic lettering.<br />

The tombs, which often have very rich screens, are themselves<br />

the least worthy features in the building—two-decked altars<br />

of white marble with inscriptions crudely coloured, and a<br />

stele at head and foot, surmounted by an ill-carved turban.<br />

There is probably some convention to account for their<br />

crudeness.<br />

About the finest specimen of this fifteenth-century type, on<br />

account of its great size, its solemn colouring, and its freedom<br />

from meretricious details, is the mosque of El-Ghury. The<br />

most beautiful, for the elegance of its exterior, and the rich-<br />

ness of its interior, is the mosque of Kait Bey, out at the<br />

Tombs of the Caliphs. The mosque of Kait Bey, in the city<br />

is a gem of mellow decoration ; other splendid examples of<br />

this style are the mosque of Kismas-el-Ishaky, El-Bordeini,<br />

and Abu-Bekr.<br />

Most mosques of any pretensions are approached by a<br />

sweeping flight of steps, with a marble balustrade. This leads<br />

up to a narrow apse of great height, with its head ornamented<br />

with matrix work. The door is of no great size, but it is often<br />

extremely beautiful, being made of bronze, adorned with<br />

conventional patterns which bear a singular resemblance to<br />

Japanese patterns, the chrysanthemum, which probably<br />

here represents the conventionalised sun of Ancient Egyptian<br />

monuments, forming the most conspicuous feature. Every<br />

mosque has a lavatory attached to it, and many formerly had<br />

a hospital as well as a college.

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