Chapter XI: Letter IX: Cairo, the 22nd April, 1843

A violent cold, which for some time checked my usual activity, has led me hither from our camp at Saqâra. The worst is, that we are still obliged to postpone our further journey. Certainly all which such a spot affords is of the utmost interest, but the abundance of material this time almost causes us embarrassment. The most important, but most difficult works, and those which occupy the longest time, are those of our architect Erbkam. To him belongs the great task of making the most detailed plans of the border of the desert, in nearly the central point of which we lie encamped. This ground comprises the almost uninterrupted field of tombs from the Pyramid of Rigah as far as that of Daschûr. The separate plans of the northern fields of Abu Roasch, Gizeh, Zauiet el Arrian are already completed. However meritorious the sketches of Perring, they cannot be compared in exactitude with ours. Entire Necropoli, with the Pyramids belonging to them, have been newly discovered, partly by myself, partly by Erbkam. Some of the Pyramids, hitherto unknown, are even now from eighty to a hundred feet high; others are indeed almost wholly demolished, but were originally of considerable extent, as is manifested by their base. My return to Saqâra will, it is to be hoped, give the signal for our departure.

We shall go by land to the Faiûm, the province which branches off into the desert. The season is still incomparably beautiful, and the desert-journey will undoubtedly be far more conducive to our health than the voyage on the Nile, which we before contemplated.

It is to be hoped that my state of health will not detain me long here, for my impatience daily increases to return from the living city of the Mamelukes into the solemn Death-city of the old Pharaohs. And yet it would perhaps afford you more pleasure if I were able to paint in colours, or in words, what I here see before my windows.

I live in the extensive square of the Ezbekîeh, in the most beautiful and most frequented part of the city. Formerly, there was a great lake in the centre, which is now, however, converted into gardens. Broad streets run round it, separated for riders, and foot passengers, and shaded by lofty trees. There all the East pass by, with their gaily-coloured, various, yet always picturesque costumes; the poorer classes with blue and white tucked up blouses, and the richer with long garments of different materials, with silk kaftans,[19] or fine cloth dresses of delicately contrasted colours, with white, red, green, and black turbans, or with the more refined, but less becoming, Turkish tarbusch;[20] amidst these some Greeks, with their dandy tunics, or Arab Sheikhs, wrapped up in their wide antique mantles, thrown around them; the children wholly or half naked, also with shaven heads, on which now and then a single tuft stands up from the crown, as if ready to be laid hold of; the women with veiled faces, but whose eyes painted round with black, peer forth ghost-like hither and thither through peep-holes in the veil. All these, and a hundred other indescribable figures, walk, glide, and rush past, on foot, on asses, mules, dromedaries, camels, horses, only not in carriages; for these were more used even in the time of the Pharaohs than they are at present. If I look up from the street, my view is bounded on one side by splendid mosques, with cupolas, and slender-springing minarets, together with long rows of houses, most of them built carelessly, yet some of a more distinguished class, richly ornamented with artistically carved grated windows, and elegant balconies; on the other side, by the green domes of palm-trees, or by leafy sycamores and acacias. Finally, in the distant background, beyond the flat roofs, and green intervening masses, the far-shining sister-pair of the two largest Pyramids stand out distinctly on the Libyan horizon in sharp lines through the thin vapour. What a contrast from that mongrel Alexandria, where innate Eastern habits and feelings still struggle for mastery with the overpowering high-pressure civilisation of Europe. It seems to me as if we had already here penetrated into the innermost heart of the East of the present day.