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Updated: June 5, 2025
These old Mission buildings of California and of Mexico too are all very similar in their construction. Some have the tower which reminds you of the Minaret of a mosque. I fancy, as the idea of the Mission building with its rectangular grounds, generally walled, came from Spain, that the mosque, with its square enclosure and houses for its attendants, was its model.
That is to say, its Moslem houses are heavy and dark, and as comfortless as so many tombs; its streets are crooked, rudely and roughly paved, and as narrow as an ordinary staircase; the streets uniformly carry a man to any other place than the one he wants to go to, and surprise him by landing him in the most unexpected localities; business is chiefly carried on in great covered bazaars, celled like a honeycomb with innumerable shops no larger than a common closet, and the whole hive cut up into a maze of alleys about wide enough to accommodate a laden camel, and well calculated to confuse a stranger and eventually lose him; every where there is dirt, every where there are fleas, every where there are lean, broken-hearted dogs; every alley is thronged with people; wherever you look, your eye rests upon a wild masquerade of extravagant costumes; the workshops are all open to the streets, and the workmen visible; all manner of sounds assail the ear, and over them all rings out the muezzin's cry from some tall minaret, calling the faithful vagabonds to prayer; and superior to the call to prayer, the noises in the streets, the interest of the costumes superior to every thing, and claiming the bulk of attention first, last, and all the time is a combination of Mohammedan stenches, to which the smell of even a Chinese quarter would be as pleasant as the roasting odors of the fatted calf to the nostrils of the returning Prodigal.
The Master had just finished checking his roster, when quite without any preliminary disturbance a crackle of rifle-fire began spattering from the city. And all at once, out of the gate opposite Nissr, appeared a white-whirling swarm of figures, at the same time that a green banner, bearing a star and crescent, broke out from the highest minaret.
The sun hung red above the silhouetted roofs of Conanicut, and a quaint tower in the shape of a minaret stood forth to cap the illusions of a day. The wind was falling, the harbour quieting for the night, and across the waters, to the tones of a trumpet, the red bars of the battleship's flag fluttered to the deck.
The Moltke sailed into the Black Sea merely far enough to sweep around in a wide circle and then, returning through the Bosporus, passed by Constantinople and entered the Sea of Marmora. "It seems like parting with a dear old friend," said a tourist as we looked back on the fading domes and waved farewell to mosque and minaret. "We have seen so much of the city in so short a time.
It was now, however, nearly half-past six yes, there went the half-hour clanging from the cracked-voiced old bell in the top of the round brick tower, which stands on one side of the cathedral, and by its likeness to a minaret reminds one of the Byzantine parentage of its builders. Half-past six!
Between them rose a few cypresses and a green minaret, out of the court of one house an ancient fig-tree thrust its twisted arms. The sun had set, and one after another bright figures appeared on the roofs.
The sun as it crept down towards the western horizon threw lengthened shadows across the soft green sward where minaret, cypress, or projecting angle of the palace intervened.
The Coutub is a tall column that is said to have been originally intended for a minaret, though the Hindoos claim it as having been erected before the Mahomedan invasion; however that may be, it is a singularly beautiful monument, and rises to a height of 260 feet.
He passed her without a sign of recognition and she, on her part, was looking at the minaret of the mosque. In their official capacities they were strangers. On certain occasions, when the commandant was in mufti they had, at least, passed the time of day.
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