CHAPTER XX.

History-Egypt under the Persians, Macedonians, Ptolemies, and Romans—Bablun— Ezra and Elijah-The Mosque el Amr─A kourbashed pillar—A strait gate— The Ommiades-The Abbasides-Tüloonides-Mosque el Tuloon-Egypt the seat of the Khalifate—El Kahira-Mosque el Azhar-Mosque el Hakim—Saladin -Ayubites-Mamluk period-Mosque el Kalaun-Mosque Sultan HassanLegend of the Bloody Mosque-Mosque Kait Bey-Mosque el Ghoriya-Egypt a Turkish Pashalic-The generous Egyptians-Rise of Mohamed Ali-Europe in Egypt-Ibrahim-Abbas-Said-Ismail-Tewfik-French intrigues-Arabi revolt-England in Egypt-Three policies.

WH

HEN Egypt, with the rest of the Persian empire, had fallen under the dominion of Alexander, the days of the great conqueror were already numbered. The Ptolemaic Greek dynasty which succeeded to this portion of his empire is known as the thirty-third dynasty. Lasting nearly three hundred years, it established Alexandria as the capital of Egypt, and for a time of half the known civilised world. What we owe intellectually to this period has already been noted -the museum and library of Alexandria, the revival of learning, the Pharos, the cities of Berenice and Arsinoe, the Septuagint, the History of Manetho, the collection of Homer. From an antiquarian point of view, we have the Rosetta Stone (173 B.C.), the key by which was unlocked all our knowledge of past Egypt; the decree of Canopus (247 B.C.), the temple of Edfoo (217 B.C.), the Pharaoh's bed at Phila (B.C. 132), the temples of Kom Ombos, Esneh, and Denderah. The battles of Philippi and Actium threw Egypt from one foreign ruler to another, and she became a province of the Roman empire (B.C. 30). Her history for the 650 years of Roman and Byzantine domination is absorbed in that of Rome and of the early Christian Church. Even a sketch of it here would be out of place. All the signs that remain of it near the not then founded city of Cairo is the fortress of Bablun at Fostat. Here was stationed one of three Roman legions, with another on the opposite bank at Ghizeh, connected by a bridge. The long dusty drive to the Roman fortress is perhaps scantily repaid by the remains visible, but those who are disposed to believe in tradition may think it worth while to visit the crypt of the Coptic church of St. Mary, where within

its walls, the priests will tell you, rested the infant Messiah and his mother; or other churches and synagogues, where you may see an alleged scroll of the Thorah written by the hand of Ezra the scribe; the spot where Elijah appeared, and where Moses is said to have prayed for the cessation of the plague of thunder and hail (Exod. ix. 29). But unless it be for some carvings in wood and ivory, there is nothing of either historic or artistic value.

Within half a mile, however, we may rightly commence our survey of Saracenic Egypt with the Mosque el Amr. The quarrels of the different sects of Christian Egyptians had, as usual, facilitated the invasion of the Persians under Chosroes (610 A.D.), and similar quarrels facilitated that of the Arabs; for the Egyptians, whether followers of Ammon or Serapis, of Christ or Mohammed, were always willing to betray the existing ruler to a new conqueror. Amrou, the general of Omar, entered Egypt by Pelusium (Isthmus of Suez), went up the country to Memphis, took Bablun, and then Alexandria after a siege of fourteen months. So terminated, on the 10th December 641, and the first day of the year 21 of the Hejira, the Roman dominion in Egypt; and building Fostat, the victorious general built this, "the crown of the mosques," now called, after him, the Mosque el Amr. The greatest authority on Saracenic art1 tells us that the mosque "has been so repeatedly restored that it is not safe to draw conclusions from its details, but it is certainly as old as the tenth century in its main outline." One cannot but bow to such an authority, and yet one is tempted to ask whether "the main outline" implies more than the foundations? For the Bill which was so altered that nothing was left of it but the word "whereas " involuntarily comes to our recollection when we try to accept the statement. Certainly a good two-thirds of the numerous columns would seem to be of very much later date, nor have they any appearance of being designed either for this or any one building. The destruction of a large part of Cairo in 1302, and the pious munificence of a Cairene merchant, who collected the debris and formed one mosque out of many, is perhaps the origin of the present Mosque el Amr. One column there is to which we may accord antiquity, and something more, according to the serious asseverations of the guardians. When Amr was building this mosque, he asked his master, the Khalif Omar, for a column from Mecca. The Khalif thereupon addressed himself to one of the columns there, and commanded it to migrate to the Nile; but the column would not stir. He repeated his command more urgently, but still the column remained immovable. A third time he repeated his command angrily, striking the column with his kourbash, but still without effect. At length he shouted, 1 Stanley Lane Poole, "Art of the Saracens in Egypt."

"I command thee, in the name of God, O column ! arise and betake thyself to Cairo." Upon which the column went, and a vein of the marble is shown as the still visible mark of the whip. Two other columns are there of some interest. Placed near together, salvation is promised to the man who can pass between them. Ismail, it is said, came to visit the mosque. A glance convinced him that his portly form could not stand the test, so, determined that the salvation denied to a Khedive should not be granted to his subjects, he ordered the space to be closed.

After the assassination of the Khalif Ali (A.D. 661), Moawiyeh established the Ommiade dynasty, which lasted eighty years. To its credit we may place the first Nilometer at the island of Roda and the first Arab coinage, inspired by the horror of Abdelmalek ibn Merwan, who finding on the Greek Byzantine coins then in use the words "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," substituted his own, with the inscription, "There is no God but God." The Abbasides succeeded, reigning mostly from Bagdad. They built a new quarter of Cairo, called El Askar, a Government-house, and a mosque, of which no traces remain; and perhaps the fact that Haroun el Raschid of the "Arabian Nights" was of this dynasty forms their sole claim to our gratitude.

In 869 A.D., Ahmad Ibn Tüloon, a governor of the Abbasy Khalifs, asserted his independence while still rendering homage to the Khalif at Bagdad as his spiritual lord, retaining his name on the coinage and in the public prayers. He added to Fostat and El Askar the suburb of El Katai; and the glory of his suburb was the mosque Ibn Tuloon. Let it be noted that the artist was a Christian, and professed to design it as an imitation of the Kaaba at Mecca. Makrisi tells us that the original idea of Tūloon was to build a mosque of 800 columns, which would have had to be taken from Greek or Roman buildings; but with a toleration in advance of his age, he abstained from the vandalism, renounced his designs, and determined to build a mosque without columns, save two at the Mihreb or recess which points to Mecca. The work is said by the same authority to have cost £60,000, and to have occupied two years in building. The arches repose on brick piers instead of stone columns, and was the first experiment of the kind. "The bold and massive style," says Mr. Stanley Lane Poole, "recalls our own Norman architecture. . . . Three sides have two rows of arches, the fourth, that which lies on the side towards Mecca, has five. All the rows of arches run parallel to the sides of the court, so that, standing in the latter, you look through the arches. The arches are all pointed, and constitute the first example of the universal employment of pointed arches throughout a building three hundred years before the adoption of the pointed