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2o8 Oriental Cairo
The massacre took place on the ist of March, iSii.
Mehcmet Ali invited the Mamelukes, 460 in number, to a
reception in the Citadel, and, when it was over, suggested
that they should ride through the town in state, escorted by
his troops. The Mamelukes assented, and proceeded between
two lines of the Pasha's troops down the steep and narrow
lane, hemmed in between rampart and rock, which leads from
the Bab-cl-V\'astani to the Bab-el-Azab. Suddenly the Babel-Azab
was closed, and, at this preconcerted signal, the
troops who were escorting the Beys fell on them, while others
shot them down from above. Only one escaped, and tradition
still points out the place where he leapt from the battlements
on his horse, and, alighting in safety, galloped off to Syria.
But history declares that he arrived too late, and was shut
out by that closing of the Bab-el-i\zab, which was the signal
for the slaughter of all his peers. He did fly to Syria—the
ray of truth which generally illuminates a tradition.
The ramparts sweep away to the right and left of the
Bab-el-Azab in grand masses, but the eye is riveted by the
soaring dome and minarets which crown the brow of the rock.
There is an effect, not much less fine in its way, at the back
of the Citadel, when, as you lift your eyes from the retreating
ramparts, you see in front of you, a mile or less away,
the El-Giyuchi mosque, which crowns the lofty Gebel-el-
Giyuchi, reached by a causeway that climbs its golden rocks.
The Gebel completely dominates the Citadel. Mehemet Ali
saw this, and mounted a battery on it, which made the Citadel
untenable at once.
Saladin, who chose the site so pictorially magnificent, is
said to have been guided by the prosaic fact that meat kept
longer on that rock than in any other part of El-Kahira.
But the presence of the mighty well of the Pharaohs is more
likely to have influenced him. He had other military con-
siderations on his side, for before the days of artillery the
Gebel-el-Giyuchi was too distant to dominate this rock, which
hung right over the city of the Caliphs. If Egypt had ever
been a great military power in the last three centuries, its
Sultan would doubtless have connected the Citadel with the