File:Mentone, Cairo and Corfu (1896) (14597034379).jpg

Identifier: mentonecairocorf00wool (find matches)
Title: Mentone, Cairo and Corfu
Year: 1896 (1890s)
Authors: Woolson, Constance Fenimore, 1840-1894
Subjects:
Publisher: New York : Harper & Brothers
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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DYNASTY While in the city of the Khedive, if one has a wishfor the benediction of a far-stretching view, he mustgo to the Citadel. The prospect from this hill hasbeen described many times. One sees all Cairo, withher minarets; the vivid green of the plain, with the. Nilewinding through it; the desert meeting the verdure andstretching back to the red hills; lastly, the pyramids,beginning with those of Gizeh, near at hand, and end-ing, far in the distance, with the hazy outlines of thoseof Abouseer and Sakkarah. The Citadel was built bySaladin in the twelfth century. Saladins palace, whichformed part of it, was demolished in 1824 to makeroom for the modern mosque, whose large dome andattenuated minarets are now the last objects which fadeaway when the traveller leaves Cairo behind him.This rich Mohammedan temple was the work of Me-hemet Ali, the founder of the present dynasty. It isnot beautiful, in spite of its alabaster, but Mehemethimself would probably admire it, could he return to
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241 earth (the mosque was not completed until after hisdeath), as he had to the full that bad taste in archi-tecture and art which, for unexplained reasons, so oftenaccompanies a new birth of progress in an old country.Mehemet was born in Roumelia; he entered the Turk-ish army, and after attaining the rank of colonel hewas sent to Egypt. Here he soon usurped all power,and had it not been for the intervention of Russia andFrance, and later of England and Austria, it is proba-ble that he would have succeeded in freeing himselfand the country whose leadership he had grasped fromthe domination of Turkey. Every one has heard some-thing of the terrible massacre of the Memlooks by hisorder, in this Citadel, in 1811. The Memlooks were op-posed to all progress, and Mehemet was bent uponprogress. Freed from their power, this ferocious liber-ator built canals ; he did his best to improve agriculture ;he established a printing-office and founded schools;he sent three hundred boys to Europe to be

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