Mr. Roberts says that there were few situations in Cairo in which he was so 
much struck with the picturesque appearance of the population as in the Bazaars, 
and this long after the mere novelty of their costume had passed away. These 
Bazaars are, of all places, the most extraordinary to an European; each is characterised 
by its merchandise or its handicraft; and groups are seen at the stalls cheapening 
articles, and heard screaming at a pitch of voice like a quarrel. 
Wilkinson’s Egypt. Roberts’s Journal. 
TOMBS OF THE CALIPHS, CAIRO : THE CITADEL IN THE 
DISTANCE. 
The singular beauty of this scene cannot fail to strike the observer; the form and 
enrichment of the dome, and the elegance of the minaret of the principal mosque, 
that of the Sultan Kaitbey, the square masses of such parts of the structure as are 
not yet in ruins, combine with the other mosques and the citadel in the back-ground 
to complete a composition of objects almost without rival for the picturesque effect 
which, in this point of view, they produce. 
The cemeteries in the neighbourhood of Cairo are of great extent, and here, occupying 
the same burial-ground, in a temple, or a grave, repose the ashes of the most powerful 
Bey or Caliph and his meanest slave; and however the cost and magnificence of the 
tomb, the mosque, and the minaret, may, for a few years, have kept the names known 
and the deeds mentioned of their founders, many of those in the cemeteries of Cairo 
are already forgotten, and the decay of the tombs themselves will ere long mingle the 
dust of the dead without distinction. All the mosques seem falling to decay, and no 
new ones arise to fill the void of grandeur; no descendant protects the tomb from 
desecration; the extinction of some families, and the poverty of others, leave the 
ruins to be inhabited by the poor people who find shelter among them, or the spoiler 
who removes the stones to construct elsewhere his hovel. 
Roberts’s Journal. 
