The houses of the poor are built of mud, or unburnt bricks dried in the sun, and are only one story high ; those of the better sort of inhabitants are of a soft stone brought from Mount Mokaddem, and, con trary to the common practice in the East, consist of two and sometimes three stories, having all flat roofs, or ter races of stone or tiles. The houses here being wisely calculated for defence, the ground floor is either a shop, or has no windows towards the street. The upper win dows, and those which look towards the court behind, are generally latticed ; many are to be seen with paper, while some of the rich indulge in the luxury of glass. The houses of the beys and grandees are large and con venient structures, being in the form of a square, with a court or garden in the centre ; around which are ranges of apartments for the different descriptions of the numerous inmates and domestics ; but being surround ed with high dead walls, these edifices contribute no thing to the decoration of the streets. The gardens, which occupy the area of these courts, are well stored with trees of the most grateful and picturesque appear ance, such as the palm and the sycamore ; and these, together with the waterworks and basins, constructed of the finest marble, produce a feeling of coolness and refreshment extremely agreeable in this scorching cli mate.
Cairo abounds with large and sumptuous reservoirs for supplying passengers with water ; and the number and elegance of its baths are no where surpassed. 'liciab okals, or warehouses, in which whole-sale commodities are kept, are remarkable for their size and strength ; and are also convenient and clean—uncommon qualities in this country. The bazars, too, or retail market places, are very extensive buildings, containing many covered stalls, or shops, for the different commodities ; for each kind of which there are appropriate quarters. But the greatest ornament of this city are its mosques, or giamees, of which there are upwards of three hundred within the walls. All these edifices being adorned with minarets or lofty steeples, of the lightest and most ornamented architecture, agrecblv interrupt the uniformity of the flat-roofed houses, and are so numerous as actually to appear at a distance like the masts of ships in a crowded harbour. These minarets are surrounded, at a great elevation, with projecting galleries, in which stand the public criers, who announce the stated times of prayer prescribed by the Mahometan law. Upwards of eight hundred voices may be heard at once from these lofty stations. It is said that the jealous Mahometans compel these criers, by all oath, to ke( p their eyes shut while above, lest they should look into any of their harems; but that as a better precaution, they generally blind persons for this office ! Among this multitude ol mosques, several arc remarkable for their elegance and solidity. The most magnificent is the mosque of Sultan Hassan ; next to it is the niouristan, a famous hospital for the insane, the sick, and the blind, where fourteen thousand persons are said to receive support at the pub lic expellee. Not far off is another noble structure, the mosque ()I' flowers, in which there is an academy or col lege. This building, at the same time that it is a master piece of oriental decoration, and splendidly adorned in the interior with marble pillars and Persian carpets, is so remarkably strong that the Beys have sometimes mount ed it with cannon, and dislodged the paella from the citadel. is a considerable collection of manu scripts ; but the only branches of learning taught arc a sort of wretched theology, grammar, and astrology, in which the Mahometans arc great believers. The in
terior of these mosques is in general fitted up with the greatest simplicity. The pavement is commonly covered with mats, seldom with carpeting ; while the walls have scarcely any other ornaments than some passages of the Koran written in letters of gold, together with a vast slumber of plain lamps suspended in horizontal rows. In the middle of the city, the Greeks have a large church dedicated to St Nicholas. Here also the Armenians have one, and the Copts, or native Christians of the Eutychian sect, two. Their patriarchs, and that of Alexandria, of the Greek persuasion, have their resi dence in the street called Harte Room ; and in another called Juwaria, resides the Archbishop of Mount Sinai, who, though he always lives at Cairo, is not a suffragan of the patriarch of Alexandria, but of that of Jerusalem. As the doors of these convents cannot be opened with out paying an enormous tax to the Arabs, the entrance is by a window, to which you arc hoisted up in a basket. The Jews also have a synagogue near the Greek church.
The citadel forms a noble object. It is situated on a rock of considerable elevation, and is about three miles in circumference : it is entered by two gates ; you ascend to the higher by a steep approach, paved with large flag stones, through piles of ruined houses, lately destroyed in the frays between the Turks and Albanians, till you arrive at the foot of the walls, which are lofty and strong. As a fortress, however, the citadel is chiefly calculated, since the invention of gun-powder, to overawe the town, being commanded by Mount INfokaddem, a range of bar ren and naked rocks in its vicinity. The French engi neers, according to Lord Valentia, wished to remedy this inconvenience by blowing up the commanding eminence, a design certainly practicable, though of great labour ; but Bonaparte would not consent to a measure which had not originated with himself. All travellers agree in sta ting the view from the ramparts to be incomparably magnificent. You survey the whole of Grand Cairo, with all its gardens, fountains, squares, palaces, mosques, and minarets, stretched out at your feet, the ruins of Bou Le, the populous town of Fostat, the grand aqueduct, the broad majestic stream of the Nile interspersed with verdant islands, the village of Geza on its opposite bank, and those eternal uneannents of human skill and folly— the pyramids. Though at least twelve miles off, the courses of stones of which the pyramids are composed, together with the head of the sphinx rising out of the sand, are perfectly distinguishable by the naked ey( ; sn enormously great are these masses' The old and new citadels were formerly separate ; but the French, having opened a communication be tween them, in a great measure converted them into one. All the objects of curiosity are contained in the new. This fortress, in which there is a very handsome Mace d'arnie8, is divided into three parts ; the first con tains toe paella's palace, the second the quarters of the Janissaries, and the third those of the Azabs. The palace has little to recommend it but its great size. For merly it was splendidly ornamented, when occupied Ly the sovereigns of Egypt ; but now that it is intrusted to the Turkish paellas, who are frequently changed, they take no interest in keeping in repair this vast structure They even no longer reside in the citadel, but in a large house in the town ; using only a ruinous apartment in the palace as a divan, or council room. All the buildings in this quarter are in ruins, except those connected with its defence. The barracks of the Janissaries are very strong, and resemble au old European fortress with high walls and towers.