My Winter on the Nile. Warner Charles Dudley
will notice also the peculiar Arabic bracketing-work, called by architects “pendentive,” fitting the angles and the transitions from the corners below to the dome. In decaying mosques, where the plaster has fallen, revealing the round stick frame-work of this bracketing, the perishable character of Saracenic ornament is apparent.
The walls are plain, with the exception of gilded texts from the Koran. Above, on strings extending across the room are little lamps, and very often hundreds of ostrich eggs are suspended. These eggs are almost always seen in Coptic and often in Greek churches. What they signify I do not know, unless the ostrich, which can digest old iron, is a symbol of the credulity that can swallow any tradition. Perhaps her eggs represent the great “cosmic egg” which modern philosophers are trying to teach (if we may be allowed the expression) their grandmothers to suck.
The stone pavement is covered with matting and perhaps with costly rugs from Persia, Smyrna, and Tunis. The end towards Mecca is raised a foot or so; in it is the prayer niche, towards which all worshippers turn, and near that is the high pulpit with its narrow steps in front; a pulpit of marble carved, or of wood cut in bewildering arabesque, and inlaid with pearl.
The oldest mosque in Cairo is Ahmed ebn e’ Tooloon, built in 879 A.D., and on the spot where, according to a tradition (of how high authority I do not know), Abraham was prevented from offering up his son by the appearance of a ram. The modern name of this hill is, indeed, Kalat-el-Kebsh, the Citadel of the Ram. I suppose the tradition is as well based as is the belief of Moslems that it was Ishmael and not Isaac whose life was spared. The center of this mosque is an open court, surrounded by rows of fine columns, five deep on the East side; and what gives it great interest is the fact that the columns all support pointed arches, and exceedingly graceful ones, with a slight curve of the horse-shoe at the base. These arches were constructed about three centuries before the introduction of the pointed arch into Europe; their adoption in Europe was probably one of the results of the Crusades.
In this same court I saw an old Nebk tree, which grows on the spot where the ark of Noah is said to have rested after its voyage. This goes to show, if it goes to show anything, that the Flood was “general” enough to reach Egypt.
The mosque of Sultan Hassan, notwithstanding its ruined and shabby condition, is the finest specimen of pure Arabic architecture in the city; and its lofty and ornamented porch is, I think, as fine as anything of its kind in the world. One may profitably spend hours in the study of its exquisite details. I often found myself in front of it, wondering at the poetic invention and sensitiveness to the beautiful in form, which enabled the builders to reach the same effects that their Gothic successors only produced by the aid of images and suggestions drawn from every department of nature.
We ascend the high steps, pass through some dilapidated parts of the building, which are inhabited, and come to the threshold. Here the Moslem removes his shoes, or street-slippers, and carries them in his hand. Over this sill we may not step, shod as we are. An attendant is ready, however, with big slippers which go on over our shoes. Eager, bright little boys and girls put them on for us, and then attend us in the mosque, keeping a close watch that the slippers are not shuffled off. When one does get off, leaving the unholy shoe to touch the ground, they affect a sort of horror and readjust it with a laugh. Even the children are beginning to feel the general relaxation of bigotry. To-day the heels of my shoes actually touch the floor at every step, a transgression which the little girl who is leading me by the hand points out with a sly shake of the head. The attention of this pretty little girl looks like affection, but I know by sad experience that it means “backsheesh.” It is depressing to think that her natural, sweet, coquettish ways mean only that. She is fierce if any other girl seeks to do me the least favor, and will not permit my own devotion to her to wander.
The mosque of Sultan Hassan was built in the fourteenth century, and differs from most others. Its great, open court has a square recess on each side, over which is a noble arch; the east one is very spacious, and is the place of prayer. Behind this, in an attached building, is the tomb of Hassan; lights are always burning over it, and on it lies a large copy of the Koran.
When we enter, there are only a few at their devotions, though there are several groups enjoying the serenity of the court; picturesque groups, all color and rags! In a far corner an old man is saying his prayers and near him a negro, perhaps a slave, also prostrates himself. At the fountain are three or four men preparing for devotion; and indeed the prayers begin with the washing. The ablution is not a mere form with these soiled laborers—though it does seem a hopeless task for men of the color of these to scrub themselves. They bathe the head, neck, breast, hands and arms, legs and feet; in fact, they take what might be called a fair bath in any other country. In our sight this is simply a wholesome “wash”; to them it is both cleanliness and religion, as we know, for Mr. Lane has taught us what that brown man in the blue gown is saying. It may help us to understand his acts if we transcribe a few of his ejaculations.
When he washes his face, he says:—“O God whiten my face with thy light, on the day when thou shalt whiten the faces of thy favorites; and do not blacken my face, on the day when Thou shalt blacken the faces of thine enemies.” Washing his right arm, he entreats:—“O God, give me my book in my right hand; and reckon with me with an easy reckoning.” Passing his wetted hand over his head under his raised turban, he says:—“O God, cover me with thy mercy, and pour down thy blessing upon me; and shade me under the shadow of thy canopy, on the day when there shall be no shade but its shade.”
One of the most striking entreaties is the prayer upon washing the right foot:—“O God, make firm my feet upon the Sirat, on the day when feet shall slip upon it.”
“Es Sirât” is the bridge, which extends over the midst of Hell, finer than a hair and sharper than the edge of a sword, over which all must pass, and from which the wicked shall fall into Hell.
In these mosques order and stillness always reign, and the devotions are conducted with the utmost propriety, whether there are single worshippers, or whether the mosque is filled with lines of gowned and turbaned figures prostrating themselves and bowing with one consent. But, much stress as the Moslems lay upon prayer, they say that they do not expect to reach Paradise by that, or by any merit of their own, but only by faith and forgiveness. This is expressed frequently both in prayers and in the sermons on Friday. A sermon by an Imam of a Cairo mosque contains these implorings:—“O God! unloose the captivity of the captives, and annul the debts of the debtors; and make this town to be safe and secure, and blessed with wealth and plenty, and all the towns of the Moslems, O Lord of the beings of the whole earth. And decree safety and health to us and to all travelers, and pilgrims, and warriors, and wanderers, upon thy earth, and upon thy sea, such as are Moslems, O Lord of the beings of the whole world. O Lord, we have acted unjustly towards our own souls, and if Thou do not forgive us and be merciful unto us, we shall surely be of those who perish. I beg of God, the Great, that He may forgive me and you, and all the people of Mohammed, the servants of God.”
CHAPTER VIII.—THE PYRAMIDS
THE ancient Egyptians of the Upper Country excavated sepulchres for their great dead in the solid rocks of the mountain; the dwellers in the lower country built a mountain of stone in which to hide the royal mummy. In the necropolis at Thebes there are the vast rock-tombs of the kings; at Sakkara and Geezeh stand the Pyramids. On the upper Nile isolated rocks and mountains cut the sky in pyramidal forms; on the lower Nile the mountain ranges run level along the horizon, and the constructed pyramids relieve the horizontal lines which are otherwise unbroken except by the palms.
The rock-tombs were walled up and their entrances concealed as much as possible, by a natural arrangement of masses of rock; the pyramids were completely encased and the openings perfectly masked. False passages, leading through gorgeously carved and decorated halls and chambers to an empty pit or a blind wall, were hewn in the rock-tombs, simply to mislead the violator of the repose of the dead as to the position of the mummy. The entrance to the pyramids is placed away from the center, and misleading passages run from it, conducting the explorer away from the royal sarcophagus. Rock-tomb and pyramid were for the same purpose, the eternal security of the mummy.
That purpose has failed; the burial-place was on too grand a scale, its contents were too tempting. There is no security for any one after death but obscurity;