GRAND CAIRO. 121 
would fancifully attribute to the labours of chap. 
English workmen^ . '^^- ^ 
To add to the Interest excited by the examina- 
tion of Sultan Saiadines magnificent palace, Mr. 
(5) See Milner on the Eccles. Architect, of England. Not that, by 
the removal of this solitary ohjection to the English origin of the 
pointed arch, any satisfactory conclusion could be drawn, as tc the 
want of its existence elsewhere in the East. This kind of arch, ac- 
cording to its very best proportions, as defined by the advocates for 
its English origin, (See Milner, as above, p. 104, Note ",) and as it 
become fashionable in England between the end of the thirteenth and 
the latter part of the fi/fef 71th century, is a peculiar characteristic of 
the architecture of the Siiracens in Egypt, m all their oldest build- 
ings. fSec the designs of Luigi Mayer, as puhlished by Sir R.Anslie.) 
It moreover exists in some of the sepulchres in Upper Egypt, and 
among the ruins oiTahtar edifices, in the remote district otMadsfiar?/, 
between the Kuma and Byvalla rivers. See Pallas's Travels in the 
South of Russia, vol. I. Plates xii, ««(/ xiii. and Fignette 6. See also 
th'i remains of the same style of nrchilectwre, Frngmens des Voi/ages, 
PL XX.. />. 430. Berne, I73"2. la the ^' f'oyages de Chord in," tome 
troisieme, are several views of the interior of different Persian palaces, 
of caravanserais, bridges, &c. Each of these plates aflFords specimens 
of the pointed arch. There is a remarkable curve in all these arches. 
At about two-thirds of the distance from the spring of the arch to its 
summit, the curvature becomes convex to the interior of the arch. 
The same remark is applicable to some pointed arches in the elevation 
and section of a sepulchral monument at MosslofKuut, on the river 
Podkuma, at the foot of Caucasus, as given in Pallas's Travels, Plate 
xiv. This curious circumstance of the convex curvature, between the 
spring of the arch and its vertex, is not, however, peculiar to the 
pointed arch in the East: it is found in buildings erected in the be- 
ginning of the fifteenth centiiry in England. An instance occurs in 
the arched niches, for the reception of images, above the altar of an 
old church of the Holy Trinity, now the Rectory church, at Harlton in 
Cambridgeshire. 
