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1 82 Oriental Cairo
desert, a brown cloak spread upon the ground ; and the
Pyramids purple against the overpowering Egyptian sunset.
It is good to see the Pyramids from the ancient hill where
the ark is said to have grounded, and Abraham to have
found the ram caught in the thicket, sent by the Lord to
save the life of Isaac. To this day the embattled brow of Ibn
Tulun's hill is called the Fort of the Ram.
But for pure physical delight all this is as nothing when
you turn your back on the sunset to see the picture it
paints on the cast. First you have the thousand-yearold
arcade and the arabesques flooded with liquid gold, and
behind that you have the fantastic domes and minarets
and altars of the Tombs of the Mamelukes and Saladin's
Citadel carried up to heaven by the towering dome, and
minarets of Mehemet All's mosque, dyed a wonderful colour
that is not gold and is not pink and is not orange and is
not purple but is the essence of them all. And away in
the distance, with the skeleton of a mosque on the skyline,
are the grim Mokattams, the mountains which are the over-
lords of Cairo.
From Ibn Tulun's mosque it is natural to turn to the
only mosque in Cairo of still more ancient foundation,
the mosque built by Kl-Amr, who conquered Egypt for Islam.
In its foundation it is one of the oldest mosques in Islam,
having been founded in 643, but it was rebuilt in the
fifteenth century and has often been restored since on
account of the prophecy that, with its destruction, Egypt
would be lost to Islam. Like Ibn Tulun's, it is built round
an open court, but only the single colonnade on the entrance
side and the Ihvdn of six aisles remain. The two side
colonnades have fallen. The courtyard is like a bit of
the desert with a nice old fountain and two ancient palms
in its centre. The liwdn is as venerable as anything in
ligypt, with its si.x rows of antique marble columns, which
have all done duty in temples of Greek and Roman Egypt,
and not a few of them in churches as well. This mosque
is full of pathetic touches, with the fallen columns of its
courtyard, its air of desertedness— it is so seldom used