We ate some bread and wine, bought a few curiosities, and then drove
back to the city, feeling very cold and shivery and regretting the
wraps we had left behind. We reached the hotel just in time for twelve
o'clock _table-d'hote_ breakfast, and, after an acceptable rest,
sallied forth again, this time on donkeys, to see the bazaars and the
sunset from the citadel. We went across squares and gardens and
through wide streets, for, alas! Cairo is being rapidly Haussmannised.
For the capitalist or resident, Cairo may be improved, but for the
traveller, the artist, the lover of the picturesque, the quaint, and
the beautiful, the place is ruined. Cairo as a beautiful and ancient
oriental city has ceased to exist, and is being rapidly transformed
into a bad imitation of modern Paris, only with bluer skies, a more
brilliant sun, and a more serene climate than it is possible to find
in Europe. Only a few narrow streets and old houses are still left,
with carved wooden lattices, where you can yet dream that the 'Arabian
Nights' are true.
We went to the gold and silver bazaar, and bought some quaint silver
jewellery from Assouan, Soudan, and Abyssinia; then through the
Turkish bazaar, the saddlery bazaars, past mosques and old houses,
till at length we emerged into new squares and new streets, before
climbing the hill to the citadel, the Viceroy's palace, and the
splendid Mosque of Mehemet Ali, built of Egyptian alabaster.
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