Mounting on
the embrasure of one of the guns, I feasted my eyes upon one of the
finest and most interesting views I had ever beheld. The city, with
its minarets, towers, kiosks, and stately palm-trees, lay at my feet,
displaying, by its extent, the solidity, loftiness, and magnificence
of its buildings, its title to the proud name of "Grand Cairo."
Beyond, in one wide flood of silver, flowed the Nile, extending far as
the eye could reach along a plain verdant with its fertilizing waters.
To the left, the tombs of the caliphs spread themselves over a desert
waste, looking, indeed, like a city of the dead. These monuments,
though not equalling in size and grandeur the tombs which we find in
India, are very striking; they are for the most part surmounted by
cupolas, raised upon lofty pillars, with the spaces open between. Upon
one of these buildings we were shown a vessel in the form of a boat,
which upon a certain festival is filled with grain and water, for the
service of the birds.
The Pyramids, which rise beyond the City of Tombs, are not seen to
advantage from this point, an intervening ridge of sand cutting off
the bases, and presenting the pinnacles only to view; but the whole of
the landscape, under the clear bright atmosphere of an Egyptian sky,
is of so exquisite a nature, that the eye can never tire of it, and
had I been detained as a prisoner in the Pasha's dominions, I might
have become reconciled to my fate, had I been confined in a situation
which commanded this splendid prospect.
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