Cairo are not paved in any way, but strewed with a dry sandy soil, so deadening to sound, that the footfall of my donkey could scarcely be heard.  There is no trottoir, and as you ride through the streets you mingle with the people on foot.  Those who are in your way, upon being warned by the shouts of the donkey-boy, move very slightly aside, so as to leave you a narrow lane, through which you pass at a gallop.  In this way you glide on delightfully in the very midst of crowds, without being inconvenienced or stopped for a moment.  It seems to you that it is not the donkey but the donkey-boy who wafts you on with his shouts through pleasant groups, and air that feels thick with the fragrance of burial spice.  “Eh!  Sheik, Eh!  Bint,—­reggalek,—­“shumalek, &c. &c.—­O old man, O virgin, get out of the way on the right—­O virgin, O old man, get out of the way on the left—­this Englishman comes, he comes, he comes!” The narrow alley which these shouts cleared for my passage made it possible, though difficult, to go on for a long way without touching a single person, and my endeavours to avoid such contact were a sort of game for me in my loneliness, which was not without interest.  If I got through a street without being touched, I won; if I was touched, I lost—­lost a deuce of stake, according to the theory of the Europeans; but that I deemed to be all nonsense—­I only lost that game, and would certainly win the next.

There is not much in the way of public buildings to admire at Cairo, but I saw one handsome mosque, to which an instructive history is attached.  A Hindustanee merchant having amassed an immense fortune settled in Cairo, and soon found that his riches in the then state of the political world gave him vast power in the city—­power, however, the exercise of which was much restrained by the counteracting influence of other wealthy men.  With a view to extinguish every attempt at rivalry the Hindustanee merchant built this magnificent mosque at his own expense.  When the work was complete, he invited all the leading men of the city to join him in prayer within the walls of the newly built temple, and he then caused to be massacred all those who were sufficiently influential to cause him any jealousy or uneasiness—­in short, all “the respectable men” of the place; after this he possessed undisputed power in the city and was greatly revered—­he is revered to this day.  It seemed to me that there was a touching simplicity in the mode which this man so successfully adopted for gaining the confidence and goodwill of his fellow-citizens.  There seems to be some improbability in the story (though not nearly so gross as it might appear to an European ignorant of the East, for witness Mehemet Ali’s destruction of the Mamelukes, a closely similar act, and attended with the like brilliant success {34}), but even if the story be false as a mere fact, it is perfectly true as an illustration—­it is a true exposition of the means by which the respect and affection of Orientals may be conciliated.