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364 Appendix III
And there were other splendid decorations in this house.
If it has been torn down, turn round the other corner of
the Sharia el-Giyuchi into the Sharia el-Marguchi and take
the first turn to the right. The Sharia Birgwan in which
vou find yourself winds round and round till it takes you
to the mosque of Abu-Bekr Mazhar el-Ansari, one of the
least known and most beautiful mosques in Cairo, a gem
of the Kait Bey epoch, with ancient and interesting houses
all round it. This mosque is especially rich in delicately
carved ivories, which arc employed on the doors at the foot
of the pulpit staircase and other parts of the pulpit. The
painted ceilings are delicious. None are more unspoiled.
There is no other ivory-work in Cairo to be compared
with its ivories except at the old Coptic church called the
Mo'Allaka out at Old Cairo. Its dikka, or reading-desk,
is like a charming fifteenth-centur\' music gallery, with
beautiful matrix decorations on its supports. Its pavement
and walls are panelled with porphyry and verde atitico in
the Sicilian style, and it has two lizvdns divided off by three
elegant stilted arches, and an exquisite ceiling round its
central cupola. It has been restored, but not too much,
so that it is left in possession of all its mellow beauty of
four hundred years.
Guides always protest that no such mosque exists, but
if you follow my direction exactly you will find yourself
opposite its doors. It is marked on Baedeker's map, which
may be taken as a proof of its e.xistence.
Artists will find this district one of the very best in Cairo
for painting or photographing.
are :
Other bits which the artist will find abounding in material
(i) The street running off the .Sharia Mohammed- Ali,
just before you come to Sultan Hassan's Mosque, which is
called successively the Sharia el-Hilmiya and the Sharia es-
Siyufiya, terminating in the Sharia Chikhun, which must be
included because it contains the two Chikhun mosques.
(2) The street running out of the Sharia Mohammed-Ali
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