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Updated: May 13, 2025
In ascending I had seen the immense blocks of stone singly, and ceased to marvel that these monuments are reckoned among the seven wonders of the world. On the castle the view had been fine, but here, where the prospect was bounded only by the horizon and by the Mokattam mountains, it is grander by far.
Behind is the citadel, crowned by Mohammed Ali's tomb-mosque of white marble, whose tall twin minarets seem to tower above the rosy-tinted heights of the Mokattam Hills. Even here the noise of the city reaches you in a subdued hum, for Cairo is not only a large city, but it is densely populated, and contains nearly a twelfth part of the whole population of Egypt.
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.
Great guns boomed from the Citadel, as the gorgeous procession, forming itself beneath the Mokattam Hills, began its slow march to where, seated in the shade of an ornate pavilion, Prince Kaid awaited its approach to pay devout homage.
Many blooming gardens, and the large extensive town with its environs; the immense desert, with its plains and hills of sand, and the lengthened mountain-range of Mokattam, all lay spread before me; and for a long time I sat gazing around me, and wishing that the dear ones at home had been with me, to share in my wonder and delight. But now the time came not only to look down, but to descend.
A storm, just retreated, had tossed Helouan upon the shore and left it there to dry; but any morning he would wake to find it had been carried off again into the depths. Some fragment, at least, would disappear. The grim Mokattam Hills were rollers that ever threatened to topple down and submerge the sandy bar that men called Helouan.
His eyes were not on the speaker, but on the distant sky, the Mokattam Hills and the forts Napoleon had built there. He was listening intently to Abdalla's high, clear voice, which rang through the courts of the ruined mosque. "In the name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful, children of Egypt, listen. Me ye have known years without number, and ye know that I am of you, as ye are of me.
So now, no duty upon them, Ryder led them past the Citadel, up the Mokattam hills behind it, to that hilltop on which stood the little ancient mosque of the Sheykh-el-Gauchy, where the sunset spaces flowed round them like a sea of light and the world dropped into miniature at their feet. Below them, in a golden haze, Cairo's domes and minarets were shining like a city of dreams.
The Red Sea is here rather narrow, and surrounded by sand of a yellowish-brown hue; immediately beyond the isthmus is the continuation of the great Libyan Desert. The mountain-range of Mokattam skirts the plain on the right, from Cairo to the Red Sea. We quite lose sight of this range until within the last ten or twelve hours before reaching Suez.
The wind had quite gone down, and though the evening was not warm, the sharpness of the morning had given place to a more gentle briskness that was in place among the sands. Far off, across the plains and the Nile, the lights of Cairo gleamed against the ridges of the Mokattam.
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