‘A JOURNEY IN THE EAST’ 289 
which seizes upon every one who has lived within their bounds. 
Not in the raw, gloomy, frozen North, but in the smiling 
ever-blooming Hast, in the land of eternal summer, and 
there alone, could have stood the cradle of the human race. 
A very good road runs from Kubbeh to Cairo ; so we soon 
reached Kasr-el-Nusha, where dinner, followed by a refreshing 
night’s rest, invigorated us for the morrow. 
On the 22nd we started in the morning with Baron Saurma, 
and drove through part of the European quarter and then up 
the long Muski to the last houses of the town, where the 
carriage-road ends and the waste barren district of the old 
tombs begins. There the broad tract of stones and sand that 
lies between Cairo and the steep cliffs of the Mokattam hills is 
completely filled up by a regular city of old mosque-like 
tombs and Mussulman graves of every description, some of 
which are very fine. A similar colony of the dead con- 
taining the tombs of the Mamelukes lies on the further side 
of the Citadel, but it is far less worthy of inspection. 
Among the many large and small mosques of the tombs of 
the Caliphs, the most remarkable is the Gamah Kait-Bey—a 
tolerably well-preserved building, with a richly ornamented 
-dome, and in its sanctuary two blocks of stone on which are 
the prints of the Prophet’s feet! These stones are said to have 
been brought from Mecca by Kait-Bey himself, the builder of 
the mosque. 
Altogether this ride through the city of tombs presented 
many highly interesting points of view. In front of us were 
the frowning precipices of the mountain, to our right the 
rock-built Citadel adorned with slender towering minarets, and 
around us a maze of tombs, gravestones, and mosques, all in-a 
ruinous condition and half-buried by the desert sands. Among 
them rose bare mounds, crowned with tower-like Arab wind- 
mills built of stone ; while the whole scene bore the stamp of 
gloom, and the many tracks of hyzenas, jackals, wolves, and. 
