orientalcairocit00sladuoft

24 Oriental Cairo
ancient mosques with fascinating mameluke domes, with the
beautiful lace-work decoration ; and in between there is much
native life to be observed in the marketing done at humble
shops. Where the Sharia Kasabet-Radowan draws in to the
Suk of the Tentmakers there is an avenueof stately buildings,
native mansions with rich portals and balconies, and mosques
with pattern'd stonework and massive bronze grills clustered
together. The Suk of the Tentmakers is a blaze of colour ;
it is also a blaze of vulgarity and impudence.
XXIV. The Beit-el-Khalil—an old Arab Mansion
Just at its beginning, notice on the left a huge gateway
admitting to the courtyard of what must have been one of
the stateliest mansions in Cairo, though what remains of it
is given over to tenements and tentmakers. But it still
has its viak'ad or open hall of the harem, with vast
moresco arches soaring almost from the ground to the roof.
It is called the Bcit-el-Khalil.
XXV. The Bab'CS'Zuweyla and the Ancient Buildings round it
Where the Bazar of the Tentmakers debouches opposite
the Bab-es-Zuweyla, are two ruined mosques—that on the
right very odd, and that on the left exquisite in its decay.
It is worth getting out to examine the former and to have
another look at the Bab-es-Zuwcyla, with its towering
minarets and its weapons of the Afrit giant high on its
mighty sides, its rags shredded to its door-nails by those
who have sick children, its humble water-sellers, its fikees
reciting the Koran, and its crowds of people, who look as
if they had stepped out of the Bible. If you go just
through the gate and take the first turn to the right, you
will find yourself in an alley which I could not define, inde-
scribably picturesque, edged with stalls of bread in uncouth
shapes—an alley wedged between superb and soaring
mosques and fountains, the very breath of the East.