CAIRO, FROM THE GATE OF CITIZENIB, LOOKING 
TOWARDS THE DESERT OF SUEZ. 
This, and the previous View of Cairo looking towards the west,* presents nearly a 
panorama of the City of the Caliphs; in that the view lay towards the Pyramids and 
the lower range of the Libyan chain, this, on the opposite side, is directed towards 
that Desert which so many of our countrymen now traverse in their journey to the 
Red Sea in the short course to India by Egypt. 
This view is taken from the high ground immediately without the gate of Citizenib, 
which leads to old Cairo (the Egyptian Babylon) and Geezeli. One of the finest objects 
in the scene is the citadel rising boldly in this magnificent view, from its foundation 
on the rock, which is a spur of the Mokattim range, but isolated wholly or in part 
by a deep artificial trench. The range of the Mokattim stretches as far as the eye 
can reach to the Desert. 
From this elevation, between the citadel and the extreme left, are seen to rise 
the minarets and noble dome of the vast pile of the mosque of the Sultan Hassan; 
and to the right, stretching to the foot of the Mokattim range, that part of the western 
Desert, which, near Cairo, forms the vast cemeteries of the city; for, unlike our dese¬ 
cration of the graves of our forefathers, the Arab holds the spot once occupied by the 
dead to be sacred, and extends the burial-ground over unbroken depositories. Here 
are seen the graves of thousands of the humble among those structures of singular 
and picturesque beauty, the ruins of the mosques and tombs of the Memlooks. 
The narrowness of the streets of the city prevents the observer from distinctly 
tracing their course, and from such a point of view acquiring any accurate knowledge 
of the plan of the city; but the character of the domestic architecture may be seen 
in the flat roofs and in the open spaces which are the gardens to the dwellings; on 
the former the Caireens enjoy the cool of evening, and the observer is reminded of 
the “Arabian Nights,” “Anastasius,” “ Zohrab,” and every Eastern tale whose author 
has laid his plots amidst the domestic privacies of the Turks and Arabs, and made 
the roofs of their dwellings the scenes of the adventures and perils of lovers, of 
intrigue and revenge, and the catastrophes of Eastern romance. 
Erroneously printed “from the west” in the title. 
Roberts’s Journal. 
