Ascending
a broad flight of steps, we passed through a large kind of guard-room
to the state-apartments. These were of rather a singular description,
but handsome and well adapted to the climate. A third portion,
consisting of the front and part of the two sides of each room, was
entirely composed of windows, opening a few feet from the ground,
and having a divan running round, furnished in the usual manner with
pillows at the back. The windows of some of these apartments opened
upon gardens, laid out in the English taste and full of English
flowers; others commanded the finest prospects of the city and the
open space below. Round these rooms, at the top, forming a sort
of cornice, were pictures in compartments or panels, one series
consisting of views of the Pasha's palaces and gardens, another of the
vessels of war which belong to him, and more especially his favourite
steam-boat, of which there are many delineations. There is nothing
that more strongly exhibits the freedom with which Mehemet Ali has
thrown off the prejudices of the Moslem religion, than his permitting,
contrary to its established principles, the representation of objects
natural and artificial, which, both in painting and sculpture, is
strictly forbidden.
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