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The defeat of the Mamelukes, and the Ottoman occupation of Kâhira in 1517, caused no cessation of mosque building; but there was a departure from the Saracenic models, and also a still more marked return to the congregational form than had been witnessed in the days of the great builders just noted.
It was the full "season" in Cairo. The ubiquitous Britisher and the no less ubiquitous American had planted their differing "society" standards on the sandy soil watered by the Nile, and were busily engaged in the work of reducing the city, formerly called Al Kahira or The Victorious, to a more deplorable condition of subjection and slavery than any old-world conqueror could ever have done.
Perhaps Memphis, as he evidently alludes to the pyramids. Kahira, or Cairo, called also Messir. Elul contains from the middle of August to the middle of September and Tisri from that to the middle of October. But the Nile begins to rise in the middle of June, and returns to its usual level in October. Of the Rabbinists or Talmudists.
The fire lasted fifty-five days, and the city in all its magnificence, having been the metropolis for five centuries, perished, a portion of the old Mosque of Amr alone remaining. Kâhira then took its place as the official centre of Egypt. Saladin, the King of Jerusalem, now became ruler of Egypt, and he at once adopted strong measures to win the apostates back to the true faith.
The Fatimid rulers outvied each other in embellishing Kâhira with artistic structures; this seems surprising because, on account of the charge of heresy, Kâhira was cut off from the Arabian centres of art and learning, from Bagdad, Damascus, and Cordova, and of course the artists and students, who formerly frequented the mosques, could not do so when they were in the hands of heretics.
Two hours after her carriage had entered the airline avenue from Ghizeh to the Pyramids, the incoming train from Alexandria bore into the composite Bedlam called "Masr el Kahira" a bronzed young American at sight of whom more than one yashmak fluttered eagerly as its dark-eyed owner beamed approval of this handsome giaour.
The calculations of the astrologers were, however, anticipated by a raven, who perched on one of the ropes and set the bells jingling, upon which every mattock was struck into the earth, and the trenches were opened. Cairo, as Kahira has come to be called, may fairly be said to have outlived all astrological prejudices.
For the heavy yoke of modern fashion has been flung on the neck of Al Kahira, and the irresistible, tyrannic dominion of "swagger" vulgarity has laid The Victorious low.
He also built the citadel, and the great wall which was to enclose not only Kâhira but the remains of the old cities. To him the present city of Cairo owes its form and extent.
The names are much disfigured, and the commencement of the journey is not mentioned; but, from the course afterwards, this may be some corruption for Armenia, or one of its districts. Perhaps a corruption for Daghistan. Perhaps Kahira, or Cairo. Schildtberger, or his transcriber, calls this the town of Bursa, by mistake for the mountain of Al-Burs. Forst.
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