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The Citadel of Cairo 209
Gebel-el-Giyuchi by containing-vvalls in which a large army
could be accommodated, making the Gebel-el-Giyuchi mosque
the keep of the Citadel. Before that, artillery did not signify,
or such a stupendous work would have appealed to monarchs
like Saladin.
There are three chief ways of entering the Citadel, either
by the Bab-el-Gedid, the gate on the hill above the Tombs of
the Caliphs, which is now the principal gate, and the only
entrance for carriages and guns on the city side, or by the
Bab-el-Azab, or by the causeway from El-Giyuchi. The
man who took me over the C'tadel on my first day in Cairo
made me enter by the Bab-el-Gedid gate, because he thought
it would impress me more. One certainly gets a side view
of the mosque of Mehemet AH, but there is nothing in that,
because the chief value of the mosque is as a horizon effect.
Whenever I went to the Citadel again I took care to enter by
the Bab-el-Azab : it is so much more interesting to climb the
crumbling steps, and pass through that frowning gate, up the
steep path walled in with rampart and rock immortalised by
the slaughter of the mamelukes. Here, as your path winds
up, you have the aspect of an ancient Citadel, and when you
suddenly turn into the great square inside the middle gate,
the Bab-el-Wastani, I think you make as much of the side-
view of the great mosque.
Let us enter it, and have done with it. Its glittering
alabaster court is rather fine. Its very size has a certain
nobility ; its fountain has a certain fascination. But the
interior is deplorable ; it has nothing to recommend it except
its height. It is built in bad taste of bad alabaster, and some
of that is imitation. Its architect was a Greek renegade. Its
lamps are hung on atrocious gilt crinoline hoops. The huge
Turkey carpet which covers its floor has a pock-marked
effect ; its decorations are in the style of a nineteenth-century
hotel. It would be unjust to compare it with the Brighton
Pavilion, which is in better taste. The effect of the interior
is much inferior to that of the dining-room at the Cataract
Hotel at Assuan. The coloured-glass windows are appalling
the painting of the dome and the upper parts, including the
;