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La Mort De Philae
by Pierre Loti, 1924
CHAPTER II--THE PASSING OF CAIRO
the citadel of old Cairo.
Ragged, threatening clouds, like those that bring the showers of our
early spring, hurry across a pale evening sky, whose mere aspect makes
you cold. A wintry wind, raw and bitter, blows without ceasing, and
brings with it every now and then some furtive spots of rain.
A carriage takes me towards what was once the residence of the great
Mehemet (Mohammed) Ali: by a steep incline it ascends into the midst of rocks and
sand--and already, and almost in a moment, we seem to be in the
desert; though we have scarcely left behind the last houses of an Arab
quarter, where long-robed folk, who looked half frozen, were muffled
up to the eyes to-day. . . . Was there formerly such weather as this
in this country noted for its unchanging mildness?
The Citadel of Cairo
By David Roberts, 1839.
This residence of the great sovereign of Egypt, the citadel and the
mosque which he had made for his last repose, are perched like eagles'
nests on a spur of the mountain chain of Arabia, the Mokattam, which
stretches out like a promontory towards the basin of the Nile, and
brings quite close to Cairo, so as almost to overhang it, a little of
the desert solitude. And so the eye can see from far off and from all
sides the mosque of Mehemet Ali (Muhammad Ali Pasha: 1769 - 1849), with the flattened domes of its
cupolas, its pointed minarets, the general aspect so entirely Turkish,
perched high up, with a certain unexpectedness, above the Arab town
which it dominates. The prince who sleeps there wished that it should
resemble the mosques of his fatherland, and it looks as if it had been
transported bodily from Stamboul (Istanbul).
Citadel entrance
By David Roberts, 1839.
A short trot brings us up to the lower gate of the old fortress; and,
by a natural effect, as we ascend, all Cairo which is near there,
seems to rise with us: not yet indeed the endless multitude of its
houses; but at first only the thousands of its minarets, which in a
few seconds point their high towers into the mournful sky, and suggest
at once that an immense town is about to unfold itself under our eyes.
Continuing to ascend--past the double rampart, the double or triple
gates, which all these old fortresses possess, we penetrate at length
into a large fortified courtyard, the crenellated walls of which shut
out our further view. Soldiers are on guard there--and how unexpected
are such soldiers in this holy place of Egypt! The red uniforms and
the white faces of the north: Englishmen, billeted in the palace of
Mehemet Ali!
The mosque first meets the eye, preceding the palace. And as we
approach, it is Stamboul indeed--for me dear old Stamboul--which is
called to mind; there is nothing, whether in the lines of its
architecture or in the details of its ornamentation, to suggest the
art of the Arabs--a purer art it may be than this and of which many
excellent examples may be seen in Cairo. No; it is a corner of Turkey
into which we are suddenly come.
Beyond a courtyard paved with marble, silent and enclosed, which
serves as a vast parvis, the sanctuary recalls those of Mehemet Fatih
or the Chah Zade: the same sanctified gloom, into which the stained
glass of the narrow windows casts a splendour as of precious stones;
the same extreme distance between the enormous pillars, leaving more
clear space than in our churches, and giving to the domes the
appearance of being held up by enchantment.
The walls are of a strange white marble streaked with yellow. The
ground is completely covered with carpets of a sombre red. In the
vaults, very elaborately wrought, nothing but blacks and gold: a
background of black bestrewn with golden roses, and bordered with
arabesques like gold lace. And from above hang thousands of gold
chains supporting the vigil lamps for the evening prayers. Here and
there are people on their knees, little groups in robe and turban,
scattered fortuitously upon the red of the carpets, and almost lost in
the midst of the sumptuous solitude.
In an obscure corner lies Mehemet Ali, the prince adventurous and
chivalrous as some legendary hero, and withal one of the greatest
sovereigns of modern history. There he lies behind a grating of gold,
of complicated design, in that Turkish style, already decadent, but
still so beautiful, which was that of his epoch.
Through the golden bars may be seen in the shadow the catafalque of
state, in three tiers, covered with blue brocades, exquisitely faded,
and profusely embroidered with dull gold. Two long green palms freshly
cut from some date-tree in the neighbourhood are crossed before the
door of this sort of funeral enclosure. And it seems that around us is
an inviolable religious peace. . . .
But all at once there comes a noisy chattering in a Teutonic tongue--
and shouts and laughs! . . . How is it possible, so near to the great
dead? . . . And there enters a group of tourists, dressed more or less
in the approved "smart" style. A guide, with a droll countenance,
recites to them the beauties of the place, bellowing at the top of his
voice like a showman at a fair. And one of the travelers, stumbling
in the sandals which are too large for her small feet, laughs a
prolonged, silly little laugh like the clucking of a turkey. . . .
Is there then no keeper, no guardian of this holy mosque? And amongst
the faithful prostrate here in prayer, none who will rise and make
indignant protest? Who after this will speak to us of the fanaticism
of the Egyptians? . . . Too meek, rather, they seem to me everywhere.
Take any church you please in Europe where men go down on their knees
in prayer, and I should like to see what kind of a welcome would be
accorded to a party of Moslem tourists who--to suppose the impossible
--behaved so badly as these savages here.
Behind the mosque is an esplanade, and beyond that the palace. The
palace, as such, can scarcely be said to exist any longer, for it has
been turned into a barrack for the army of occupation. English
soldiers, indeed, meet us at every turn, smoking their pipes in the
idleness of the evening. One of them who does not smoke is trying to
carve his name with a knife on one of the layers of marble at the base
of the sanctuary.
At the end of this esplanade there is a kind of balcony from which one
may see the whole of the town, and an unlimited extent of verdant
plains and yellow desert. It is a favourite view of the tourists of
the agencies, and we meet again our friends of the mosque, who have
preceded us hither--the gentlemen with the loud voices, the bellowing
guide and the cackling lady. Some soldiers are standing there too,
smoking their pipes contemplatively. But spite of all these people, in
spite, too, of the wintry sky, the scene which presents itself on
arrival there is ravishing.
Cairo, by David Roberts, 1839.
A very fairyland--but a fairyland quite different from that of
Stamboul. For whereas the latter is ranged like a great amphitheatre
above the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmora, here the vast town is
spread out simply, in a plain surrounded by the solitude of the desert
and dominated by chaotic rocks. Thousands of minarets rise up on every
side like ears of corn in a field; far away in the distance one can
see their innumerable slender points--but instead of being simply, as
at Stamboul, so many white spires, they are here complicated by
arabesques, by galleries, clock-towers and little columns, and seem to
have borrowed the reddish colour of the desert.
The flat rocks tell of a region which formerly was without rain. The
innumerable palm-trees of the gardens, above this ocean of mosques and
houses, sway their plumes in the wind, bewildered as it were by these
clouds laden with cold showers. In the south and in the west, at the
extreme limits of the view, as if upon the misty horizon of the
plains, appear two gigantic triangles. They are Gizeh (Giza) and Memphis--the
eternal pyramids.
At the north of the town there is a corner of the desert quite
singular in its character--of the colour of bistre and of mummy--where
a whole colony of high cupolas, scattered at random, still stand
upright in the midst of sand and desolate rocks. It is the proud
cemetery of the Mameluke Sultans, whose day was done in the Middle
Ages.
But if one looks closely, what disorder, what a mass of ruins there
are in this town--still a little fairylike--beaten this evening by the
squalls of winter. The domes, the holy tombs, the minarets and
terraces, all are crumbling: the hand of death is upon them all. But
down there, in the far distance, near to that silver streak which
meanders through the plains, and which is the old Nile, the advent of
new times is proclaimed by the chimneys of factories, impudently high,
that disfigure everything, and spout forth into the twilight thick
clouds of black smoke.
The night is falling as we descend from the esplanade to return to our lodgings.
We have first to traverse the old town of Cairo, a maze of streets
still full of charm, wherein the thousand little lamps of the Arab
shops already shed their quiet light. Passing through streets which
twist at their caprice, beneath overhanging balconies covered with
wooden trellis of exquisite workmanship, we have to slacken speed in
the midst of a dense crowd of men and beasts.
El Mooristan, Cairo
By David Roberts, 1839.
Close to us pass women,
veiled in black, gently mysterious as in the olden times, and men of
unmoved gravity, in long robes and white draperies; and little donkeys
pompously bedecked in collars of blue beads; and rows of leisurely
camels, with their loads of lucerne (alfalfa), which exhale the pleasant
fragrance of the fields. And when in the gathering gloom, which hides
the signs of decay, there appear suddenly, above the little houses, so
lavishly ornamented with mushrabiyas and arabesques, the tall aerial
minarets, rising to a prodigious height into the twilight sky, it is
still the adorable East.
The Gate of the Metwalys (Metawalea), Cairo.
By David Roberts, 1839.
But nevertheless, what ruins, what filth, what rubbish! How present is
the sense of impending dissolution! And what is this: large pools of
water in the middle of the road! Granted that there is more rain here
than formerly, since the valley of the Nile has been artificially
irrigated, it still seems almost impossible that there should be all
this black water, into which our carriage sinks to the very axles; for
it is a clear week since any serious quantity of rain fell. It would
seem that the new masters of this land, albeit the cost of annual
upkeep has risen in their hands to the sum of fifteen million pounds,
have given no thought to drainage. But the good Arabs, patiently and
without murmuring, gather up their long robes, and with legs bare to
the knee make their way through this already pestilential water, which
must be hatching for them fever and death.
Further on, as the carriage proceeds on its course, the scene changes
little by little. The streets become vulgar: the houses of "The
Arabian Nights" give place to tasteless Levantine buildings; electric
lamps begin to pierce the darkness with their wan, fatiguing glare,
and at a sharp turning the new Cairo is before us.
What is this? Where are we fallen? Save that it is more vulgar, it
might be Nice, or the Riviera, or Interkalken, or any other of those
towns of carnival whither the bad taste of the whole world comes to
disport itself in the so-called fashionable seasons. But in these
quarters, on the other hand, which belong to the foreigners and to the
Egyptians rallied to the civilization of the West, all is clean and
dry, well cared for and well kept. There are no ruts, no refuse. The
fifteen million pounds have done their work conscientiously.
Everywhere is the blinding glare of the electric light; monstrous
hotels parade the sham splendour of their painted facades; the whole
length of the streets is one long triumph of imitation, of mud walls
plastered so as to look like stone; a medley of all styles, rockwork,
Roman, Gothic, New Art, Pharaonic, and, above all, the pretentious and
the absurd. Innumerable public-houses overflow with bottles; every
alcoholic drink, all the poisons of the West, are here turned into
Egypt with a take-what-you-please.
And taverns, gambling dens and houses of ill-fame. And parading the
side-walks, numerous Levantine damsels, who seek by their finery to
imitate their fellows of the Paris boulevards, but who by mistake, as
we must suppose, have placed their orders with some costumier for
performing dogs.
This then is the Cairo of the future, this cosmopolitan fair! Good
heavens! When will the Egyptians recollect themselves, when will they
realise that their forebears have left to them an inalienable
patrimony of art, of architecture and exquisite refinement; and that,
by their negligence, one of those towns which used to be the most
beautiful in the world is falling into ruin and about to perish?
And nevertheless amongst the young Moslems and Copts now leaving the
schools there are so many of distinguished mind and superior
intelligence! When I see the things that are here, see them with the
fresh eyes of a stranger, landed but yesterday upon this soil,
impregnated with the glory of antiquity, I want to cry out to them,
with a frankness that is brutal perhaps, but with a profound sympathy:
"Bestir yourselves before it is too late. Defend yourselves against
this disintegrating invasion--not by force, be it understood, not by
inhospitality or ill-humour--but by disdaining this Occidental
rubbish, this last year's frippery by which you are inundated. Try to
preserve not only your traditions and your admirable Arab language,
but also the grace and mystery that used to characterise your town,
the refined luxury of your dwelling-houses. It is not a question now
of a poet's fancy; your national dignity is at stake. You are
Orientals--I pronounce respectfully that word, which implies a whole
past of early civilisation, of unmingled greatness--but in a few
years, unless you are on your guard, you will have become mere
Levantine brokers, exclusively preoccupied with the price of land and
the rise in cotton."
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