DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11715#0034
THE LAND OF THE PHARAOHS.
past, when the Father of History conversed with the priests of Sais and Memphis.
It may have been bombast, but it was scarcely exaggeration, when Napoleon, on the
eve of the battle of the pyramids, issued his famous ordre dujotcr, " Soldiers, forty
centuries are looking down on you ! " And now, by a strange anachronism, we are
gazing quietly out of the window of a railway carriage, at edifices which seems to be
nearly coeval with the existence of man upon the earth.
But our reveries are broken in upon by our arrival at the railway station, where a
struggle like that at Alexandria awaits us with the hammals and donkey-boys contend-
ing for the possession of our persons and baggage. Having extricated ourselves from
their clutches with some difficulty, we make our way to the hotel.
Cairo lies at the entrance of the Nile Valley, near the point at which the river
branches out into the channels which form the Delta. Its modern name is a European
corruption of that given to it by its Arab conquerors—-El Kakerah, the victorious.
By the natives it is called Misr or Masr, and the same name is given by them to the
whole of Egypt. This is evidently a modern form of the Scriptural Mizraim, and
affords another instance of the survival of
ancient names through a lone course of cen-
turies, and after repeated conquests by foreign
nations.1 It is situated about a mile from the
river. A long straggling street leads down to
Bulak, which is the port; and Fostat, or Old
Cairo, runs along the Nile bank. The popu-
lation of the city was given in the census of
1882 as 368,108, but good authorities reckon
it as 400,000 in round numbers. The resident
Europeans amount to 21,000.
Those who wish to see the Cairo of romance,
and of the Arabian NigJits Entertainments,
should lose no time in visiting it, for it is being
rapidly " improved off the face of the earth."
The new quarter is but a shabby reproduction of
lattice windows in Cairo. modern Paris, from which all characteristic Ori-
ental features, the graceful lattice-work windows,
the overhanging stories, the picturesque color, have disappeared. The Ezbekeeyah
garden has nothing but its semi-tropical vegetation to distinguish it from the public
gardens of any European capital. Young Egypt, sallow-faced, and dressed in fez cap,
baggy, ill-fitting black clothes, and patent leather boots, unsuccessfully affects the airs,
and only too successfully cultivates the vices, of Parisian flaneurs. Said Pasha, who
died in 1863, greatly benefited Egypt by his administrative skill and enlightened policy ;
but since his day the old picturesque life of the East has been fast passing away, and
a thin veneer of European civilization has been superimposed upon unalloyed native
barbarism. That the sanitary condition of the city was horrible, and that improvement
was urgently needed, cannot be questioned. If the Khedive had set himself to effect
the necessary reforms by developing a system of architecture in harmony with the
habits of the people, the requirements of the climate, and the characteristics of Arabian
1 See for numerous parallel instances Those Holy Fields, p. 89.
past, when the Father of History conversed with the priests of Sais and Memphis.
It may have been bombast, but it was scarcely exaggeration, when Napoleon, on the
eve of the battle of the pyramids, issued his famous ordre dujotcr, " Soldiers, forty
centuries are looking down on you ! " And now, by a strange anachronism, we are
gazing quietly out of the window of a railway carriage, at edifices which seems to be
nearly coeval with the existence of man upon the earth.
But our reveries are broken in upon by our arrival at the railway station, where a
struggle like that at Alexandria awaits us with the hammals and donkey-boys contend-
ing for the possession of our persons and baggage. Having extricated ourselves from
their clutches with some difficulty, we make our way to the hotel.
Cairo lies at the entrance of the Nile Valley, near the point at which the river
branches out into the channels which form the Delta. Its modern name is a European
corruption of that given to it by its Arab conquerors—-El Kakerah, the victorious.
By the natives it is called Misr or Masr, and the same name is given by them to the
whole of Egypt. This is evidently a modern form of the Scriptural Mizraim, and
affords another instance of the survival of
ancient names through a lone course of cen-
turies, and after repeated conquests by foreign
nations.1 It is situated about a mile from the
river. A long straggling street leads down to
Bulak, which is the port; and Fostat, or Old
Cairo, runs along the Nile bank. The popu-
lation of the city was given in the census of
1882 as 368,108, but good authorities reckon
it as 400,000 in round numbers. The resident
Europeans amount to 21,000.
Those who wish to see the Cairo of romance,
and of the Arabian NigJits Entertainments,
should lose no time in visiting it, for it is being
rapidly " improved off the face of the earth."
The new quarter is but a shabby reproduction of
lattice windows in Cairo. modern Paris, from which all characteristic Ori-
ental features, the graceful lattice-work windows,
the overhanging stories, the picturesque color, have disappeared. The Ezbekeeyah
garden has nothing but its semi-tropical vegetation to distinguish it from the public
gardens of any European capital. Young Egypt, sallow-faced, and dressed in fez cap,
baggy, ill-fitting black clothes, and patent leather boots, unsuccessfully affects the airs,
and only too successfully cultivates the vices, of Parisian flaneurs. Said Pasha, who
died in 1863, greatly benefited Egypt by his administrative skill and enlightened policy ;
but since his day the old picturesque life of the East has been fast passing away, and
a thin veneer of European civilization has been superimposed upon unalloyed native
barbarism. That the sanitary condition of the city was horrible, and that improvement
was urgently needed, cannot be questioned. If the Khedive had set himself to effect
the necessary reforms by developing a system of architecture in harmony with the
habits of the people, the requirements of the climate, and the characteristics of Arabian
1 See for numerous parallel instances Those Holy Fields, p. 89.