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The Holy Carpet and Celebration of Bairam 237
years before his accession to the throne, under the following
circumstances :
" Shaghru d-Durr, a beautiful Turkish female slave, who
became the favourite wife of Sultan As-Salih Najmu d-din,
and who on the death of his son (with whom terminated the
dynasty of Aiyub) caused herself to be acknowledged Queen
of Egypt, performed the hajj in a magnificent litter borne by
a camel. And for successive years her empty litter was sent
yearly to Makkah as an emblem of State. After her death,
a similar litter was sent each year with the caravan of pilgrims
from Cairo and Damascus, and is called Mahmal or Mahmil,
a word signifying that by which anything is supported."
I was unfortunately away at Khartum at the time of the
departure of the Holy Carpet, so I only witnessed its return.
I imagine that the earlier procession is much the finer of
the two. The procession was of no great extent ; it depended
on quality rather than quantity, but the audience
was gigantic and the auditorium not easily to be matched
in the world.
By the kindness of Mansfield Pasha, the late head of the
Egyptian police, who made Arabic history and institutions a
study in many languages in order to understand the bearing
of Mohammedan law and custom upon the code which he had
to administer, we had a place given us for our carriage right
opposite the permanent kiosk erected for the Khedive and his
Ministers when receiving the Mahmal, which looks like an
open-air stage. It stands far down the sort of Campus
Martius under the Citadel, the upper part of which is occupied
by the Market of the Afternoon and the Meidan Rumeleh.
The position is magnificent, for many thousand people can
be accommodated in this huge open space, and its surroundings
make such a noble background for the pageant. Behind the
pavilion of the Sovereign, whose family, like the Caliphs before
them, have associated themselves so intimately with the
Mecca pilgrimage (the Khedive himself having made the
pilgrimage), rises the noble old Citadel of Saladin, a castle
on a rock culminating in the soaring dome and obelisk of
Mehemet All's mosque, the Crown of Cairo. And its lines