ONE OF THE TOMBS OF THE CALIPHS, CAIRO. 
This, though so generally named by our Artist, is a portion of the well-known collegiate 
mosque of the Sultan Barkook. The open loggia with the arches springing from 
the slender columns is used as the school, and the porch presents a beautiful example 
of the stalactitic decoration of the Arab architects. The general appearance of these 
beautiful structures, so rapidly falling to decay, saddens the observer. They have 
been raised by the proud desire to leave a name, but without lineal descendants to 
cherish that name and preserve the mosques from decay, their ruin is certain, and it 
is, perhaps, even desired by the members of another family who may succeed to power, 
that the name of the founder should perish: and the sovereigns of Egypt have no 
nationality of feeling to preserve them. To this, and to the power to destroy wherever 
there is the will, we may attribute the unheeded ruin of these remarkable buildings. 
This mosque was built between the years 1382 and 1398 of our era; but it is 
not the sepulchral mosque of the Sultan Barkook: the ruins of that tomb-mosque are 
found without the walls, among the tombs of the Sultans. 
