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Its domes and minarets, and the long serrated line of the Mokattam Hills were carved against the sky in the yellow-rose of pink topaz. Shafts of light gave to jagged shapes and terraces of rock on the low mountains an appearance of temples and palaces, very noble and splendid, as must have been the first glimpse of Ancient Egypt to desert-worn fugitives from famine in Palestine.
From its position and its fortification, it would seem almost invincible; but, unfortunately, the fortress is itself commanded by the higher Mokattam hills, as was shown in 1805, when Mohammed Ali, by means of a battery placed on a hill, compelled Karishid Pasha to surrender the stronghold.
On the right the scarps of Mokattam, of a rosy gray, show their bare sides, on which no vegetation is apparent. The trees of the square conceal the newer buildings, and thus my dream was not too much upset. Being an invalid, I had to be somewhat careful, and required two or three days of complete rest.
The Mokattam Hills were like vast dun barriers guarding and shutting in the ghostly place, and, high above all, the minarets of the huge mosque upon the lofty rocks were impalpable fingers pointing an endless flight. The very trees seemed so little real and substantial that they gave the eye the impression that they might rise and float away.
Below, in the lobby, where the pillars of Mokattam alabaster upheld the painted roof, the little yellow man from Pekin shivered slightly, although the air was warm for Limehouse, and always turned his mysterious eyes toward a corner of the great staircase which was visible from where he sat, coiled up, a lonely figure in the mushrabiyeh chair.
And then your eyes travel up the slowly shrinking walls till they reach the dark point which is the top. There you stood with Abou, who spends half his life on the highest stone, hostages of the sun, bathed in light and air that perhaps came to you from the Gold Coast. And you saw men and camels like flies, and Cairo like a grey blur, and the Mokattam hills almost as a higher ridge of the sands.
He looked at the stars twinkling high above the distant Libyan Plateau; at the long arms of the Desert, gleaming weirdly white in the moonlight, and reaching towards him down every opening between the houses; at the heavy mass of the Mokattam Hills, guarding the Arabian Wilderness with strange, peaked barriers, their sand-carved ridges dark and still above the Wadi Hof.
In Smyrna, Damascus, and Jerusalem, cities of the Turkish empire, the streets are narrow, crooked, and dirty, but here are many fine buildings, electric lights, electric cars, and good, wide streets, over which vehicles with rubber tires roll noiselessly. I first went out to the Mokattam Heights, lying back of the city, at an elevation of six hundred and fifty feet.
"To the hotel, effendi, first, then to the Mokattam Hills after thee, then here from the Effendina, on whom be God's peace, this letter for thee." David took the letter. "I thank thee, friend," he said. As he read it, Lacey said to the orderly in Arabic "How didst thou know he was here?" The orderly grinned wickedly. "Always it is known what place the effendi honours.
Was there not an observatory on the Mokattam Hills, too, where tourists could use the telescopes on privileged days? He had it at last. He even stole out on to his balcony to see if the stranger perhaps was looking through some wonderful apparatus at the heavens. Their rooms were on the same side. But the shuttered windows revealed no stooping figure with eyes glued to a telescope.
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