CAIRO.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3511, 9 October 1882, Page 4

CAIRO.

Mr J. Kingston, in his recently-published work, ' The Australian Abroad,' has given a most lively and interesting account of what he saw in Egypt. He has, in the second volume of his work, six chapters on Egypt, and from the chapter entitled the ' Khedive's City ' our extracts are taken. The title of 'Grand' is not. inappropriately affixed to Cairo, which city of the Khedive, and in which he is everything, is a most confusing one altogether in its mixture of things ancient and modern. I had read about Egypt much as most folks had, and forgotten it also. Of its modern history I knew it was a dependency of Turkey, and once governed by a Viceroy, whose descendant now strangely called himself ' Khedive ' —a new title, indicating a position next only to King or Queen, like that of a knave. Also that its capital had pyramids near to it from which forty centuries looked down, and a river about one end of which there had always been much mystery. All that I knew about it was, however, as nothing, of which I felt rather glad. This Cairo has, I now find, 500,000 of folks in it —males, females, and eunuchsFrench, German?, Turks, Arabs, English, Copts. Egyptians, proper and improper— with estrays from all countries. It has no general newspaper and no police to speak of —offering in that way facilities rot often met with for the commission of crime, and for escaping the consequences. In aspect it is something like Edinburgh, in having a tall high-planted citadel at hand, from which the city can be overlooked and views impressive in their strangeness be seen on all sides of it. Like Edinburgh, too, it has an old and a new town, and they show a great difference in characteristics, especially in width of streets. Those of the old town are five feet, or two donkeys wide, only, but those of the new one are never less than 100 feet, and often much more. About, the new part of Cairo there is much that is French-like, and indeed the French themselves have a good footing amongst the 500,000 of its folks. The great square of Esbeekeeyeh, which is more than half a mile in length and breadth, has several rotundas in it, in which bands play afternoon and evening. Its public garden is tastefully laid out. From a rustic tower there, built with galleries to its second and third stories, a good look around can be obtained at the place and the people —the men with the fez, and the red-covered heads, and the women with yashmak-covered faces, pink-stained nails, and blackened eyelids. The grand hotel initiated by the Khedive for crushing those conducted by the subjects stands opposite the square. Around it are the fashionable drive and best buildings in tho city. In front of the new hotel runs the road to Shoobra—a suburb some few miles distant. Driving to Shoobra is the fashion- ' able thing to do at about tho hour at which folks turn out for similar purposes in Rotten Row, London, the Maidann of Calcutta, and Posillipo road at Naples. Adown this drive the acacia, sycamore, and mulberry trees form pleasant shelter on either side. Between them are to be seen every description of vehicle and people, The example set by the Khedive af£ect3 the whole community. The carriages of the occupants of hi 3 many palaces half fill thii drive of an evening, and it being the correct thing to do, all the fast people of the place, and they are mostly that way given, follow suit. Tbe ' bazaars' are the streets of the old town. These narrow avenues are some of them devoted to special trades —the jewellers having one or two all to themselves. They are interesting places in spite of the crowded state to which their narrow limits always subject them, In these bazaars the keepers of the little shops sit cross-legged behind their wares, and mostly beguile their time by smoking. The best of their goods are not exhibited, but kept on shelves within boxes and wrappings. Cairo is all mosques, and their pretty minarets help greatly to make picturesque the city. The call to prayer comes sometimes from the priest at the door, and at others from one higher, situated in tho balcony of tho minaret. The latter is usually found to be a blind man. In the early morning this 'Conic to prayer—prayer,'is better than sleep!' sounds strikingly on the ear in the then quietude of the city. At night it is much drowned by other noises, amongst which the barking of dogs is not the least. In one of the oldest of these buildings I am shown the footprint of Mahomet, which is here carefully preserved among the surrounding tombs. It has got widened and deepened with tho kisses of countless believers, and is now out of all foot-shape and size. At the foot of the citadel stands the mosque of all mosques of Cairo —a splendid alabaster building, requiring 100 carpets to cover its floor. Taking off one's shoes to enter was a matter of respect nothing out of the way. From the roof hang an endless number of chains, to which on occasions lamps are suspended. Seen without the lamps to them, these chains look Btrange things in the place, and nowise ornamental. One has to move about very carefully not to fall over the many devotees here to be seen about in prostrate positions. After visiting the Mosque of Hassen and that of Mahomet's footprint, curiosity about mosques is quite satisfied, and the other 200 or 300 scattered about the city can be left to other visitors. A shilling is charged for slippers to infidel feet at all these places. Here from the citadel, all of Cairo, and far around, is to be seen as by a bird—all its minarets and domes, as also the tombs of , the Sultans, Caliphs, and the endless unnamed of Egypt, whose graves are here strewn about. On one side is seen the green land of Goshen in all its beauty, and on the other the far-stretching sands of the desert, with the everlasting Pyramids that are now so plainly visible, Away over there the dragoman points to an undistinguishable pillar as one remaining obelisk of Heliopolis —the ' On' of the Scriptures, which was visited by Abraham. Cleopatra's Needles, he tells me, were at the time companions of that now solitary pillar. There are only one or two views finer of the kind than that to be so had from this citadel. On the way back I am shown tho house in which the Holy Family dwelt for two years, when they fled hither to avoid the slaughter of the firstborn. The family which are now here consist only of fleas, that are more alarmingly aggressive than elsewhere. The Coptic Church makes nothing of these holy places. The church of Eome would have taken care that a fine chapel was erected over such a shrine. Twice I went to visit the museum at Cairo, and would have gone again and again had time served. I came away from it each day with increased respect for the earlier people of this wonderful Egypt. They knew much more, very much more, than we credit them with, and had a higher civilisation and more of the benefits of it than we imagine. Half the instruments we have invented, especially the surgical ones, were common to the old Egyptains. They knew all about navigation, and discovered the tape route and the land that it leads to, some three thousand years before the Portuguese took honours for doing likewise. They had scriptures, sacred books, written before Confucius, Buddha, Moses, or Mahomet ever penned a lino —of which books there are copies extant to this day. They kept'the soventli day as sacred as we do, and named, in our fashion, the other sis from tho '

heavenly bodies. They had convents and aud lady superiors. Their priests were ordai ned by those who acted as do our bishops, and were something similarly dressed. These were the people who made the neighbouring Heliopolis a combined Cambridge and Oxford for learning, and Egypt a land in letters. Of all which, and a quirefull more, there is evidence in this Cairo museum, as there is in the museums of other lands. Egypt has done largely, indeed, in the way of museum-furnishing.