DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2873#0037
Ill !
K
STREET VIEW IN CAIRO.
benches in front for the accommodation of customers, and these were removed by the Pasha's direction. It is
grievous to see the consternation occasioned by the introduction of carriages in a city so unsuited to their
presence. Men, women, children, camels, horses, and donkeys, escape from the threatened destruction to the
spaces in front of the newly-erected houses, and to the lanes and quarters opening into the main thoroughfares.
The street in this view gives an idea of the repose of Eastern life in the Muslim quarters, undisturbed
by association with the bustling, anxious European—the only trace of Western civilization being found in the
number affixed to the house on the right—125.
A map of Cairo is very curious, showing how entirely persons are mistaken who, seeing only the streets
and lanes, imagine it to be a crowded city. All the best houses have courts—some very spacious__into
which the principal apartments look; and although for the purposes of ventilation the plan may be imperfect,
it is the only one suitable to Eastern life.
In the view may be noticed a window through which a person sitting within might be easily seen by
passengers in the street: it is the window of a room appropriated to the reception of male visitors, and
therefore is in the lower part of the house. The upper floor of the house in the foreground on the right is
evidently roofless, as the sky is seen through the lattice; and this floor, with few partitions, or without any,
and rarely with so high a wall, forms in the Egyptian house the terrace—so called by Europeans—on which
the family pass the early mornings and the evenings, and on which, in the hottest season, their mattresses
are sometimes spread for the night. These terraces are sometimes paved, but more frequently have a smooth
coat of plaster.
In the nearest lattice-window, facing the spectator, is a projection in which the porous water-bottles are
placed for cooling the water by evaporation. Several others may be observed in the view, not so near. On
the left, in the ground-floors of two houses, are three shops—mere recesses, like deep cupboards, having no
communication with the houses. The houses beyond are modernized. The minarets of two mosques rise on
the left, the nearer of them having lost what originally formed its uppermost portion.
i
K
STREET VIEW IN CAIRO.
benches in front for the accommodation of customers, and these were removed by the Pasha's direction. It is
grievous to see the consternation occasioned by the introduction of carriages in a city so unsuited to their
presence. Men, women, children, camels, horses, and donkeys, escape from the threatened destruction to the
spaces in front of the newly-erected houses, and to the lanes and quarters opening into the main thoroughfares.
The street in this view gives an idea of the repose of Eastern life in the Muslim quarters, undisturbed
by association with the bustling, anxious European—the only trace of Western civilization being found in the
number affixed to the house on the right—125.
A map of Cairo is very curious, showing how entirely persons are mistaken who, seeing only the streets
and lanes, imagine it to be a crowded city. All the best houses have courts—some very spacious__into
which the principal apartments look; and although for the purposes of ventilation the plan may be imperfect,
it is the only one suitable to Eastern life.
In the view may be noticed a window through which a person sitting within might be easily seen by
passengers in the street: it is the window of a room appropriated to the reception of male visitors, and
therefore is in the lower part of the house. The upper floor of the house in the foreground on the right is
evidently roofless, as the sky is seen through the lattice; and this floor, with few partitions, or without any,
and rarely with so high a wall, forms in the Egyptian house the terrace—so called by Europeans—on which
the family pass the early mornings and the evenings, and on which, in the hottest season, their mattresses
are sometimes spread for the night. These terraces are sometimes paved, but more frequently have a smooth
coat of plaster.
In the nearest lattice-window, facing the spectator, is a projection in which the porous water-bottles are
placed for cooling the water by evaporation. Several others may be observed in the view, not so near. On
the left, in the ground-floors of two houses, are three shops—mere recesses, like deep cupboards, having no
communication with the houses. The houses beyond are modernized. The minarets of two mosques rise on
the left, the nearer of them having lost what originally formed its uppermost portion.
i