Chapter II: The Town of the Tent

IN the view from the Citadel one sees an essentially mediæval city, but of all the Arab buildings there is not one that in its present state dates back to the Arab conquest. Before the Muslims invaded Egypt in 640 there was no Cairo, and strictly speaking there was none till three centuries later than that, when the Greek general laid the foundations of the palace-city of the Fátimid caliphs and it received the name el- Káhira, which Europeans twisted into Cahere, Caire, and Cairo. But this is merely a pedantry of terms, and one might as well restrict London to the City and refuse the name to Westminster and Mayfair. There was a Muslim capital from the days of the conquest, and though it was not called Cairo it was close to the present city, which is merely an expansion of the original town. The history of its growth will appear as we study its several stages and monuments, and for the moment a bare enumeration of the successive foundations will suffice. First rose the original Arab settlement, Fustát, the Town of the Tent, in 641. To this was added in 751 a north-eastern suburb, the official residence of the governors and their troops, hence named el-‘Áskar, “the Cantonments.” A new royal faubourg, or small city, was built still more to the north- east by the first independent Muslim King of Egypt, Ibn-Tulún, about 860, and was known by the name of el-Katái‘, “the Wards,” because it was divided into separate quarters for different nations and classes. So far the three towns were practically contiguous, and ‘Askar and Katái‘ were but the Chelsea and St James’s of the City, the commercial capital, Fustát.

The fourth foundation was still further to the north-east, and a considerable vacant space was left between it and the almost destroyed faubourg of Katái‘, in order to preserve the safety and seclusion of the sacred caliphs for whom it was built in 969. This last was the true Cairo, el-Káhira, but it was not the commercial and residential capital, any more than ‘Askar or Katái‘ had been. Fustát, resting on the Nile bank, was still the emporium of trade and the metropolis alike of business and of culture, whilst Káhira was but a palace, a barrack, and a seat of government. When the mediæval chroniclers, such as William of Tyre, write of “Macer”—meaning Masr (properly Misr) the usual Arabic name both for Egypt and for its capital—they refer not to Káhira but to Fustát, or as it was commonly called Misr-el-Fustát. The Emír or Caliph or Sultan might dwell and rule at any suburb he pleased to build, but the old capital remained the real metropolis throughout. There the Kádis sat in judgment in the “Old Mosque”; there the coins of the realm were issued; and there resided the bulk of the citizens who were not attached to the palace. It was only when Fustát was deliberately burned in 1168, to save it from giving cover to the Crusaders, that Káhira took its place as the real capital as well as the official centre of Egypt.

Saladin was the creator of Cairo as we know it. It was he who planned the wall that was to enclose not only Káhira but the Citadel and what remained of Katái‘ and Fustát, and from his time began the building over the space intervening between the Citadel and the palace of Káhira which gradually filled up the Cairo which we now see. The growth of the city thus consisted mainly of three successive expansions towards the north- east, accompanied by decay of abandoned suburbs, and ending in a general enclosure of the chief inhabited portions. Since the days of Saladin, whatever remained of Fustát has vanished, and only a straggling village called Masr-el-Atíka or “Old Masr,” and known to Europeans as “Old Cairo,” has risen near its site, which is easily traced by the immense rubbish-heaps. On the other hand a new town has grown up between Káhira and the Nile under European influences, but with this, pleasant winter city as it is, the Mediæval Town has nothing to do.

The narrative of the Arab invasion of Egypt is in many points exceedingly obscure, owing to the circumstances that the Arabs did not begin to write history till more than two centuries later, and that our only almost contemporary authority, John, bishop of Nikiu, has come down to us in a corrupt translation. The Arabs under the command of ‘Amr ibn el-‘Asy entered Egypt not more than 4000 strong in December 639, in the caliphate of ‘Omar, the second successor of the prophet Mohammad; and after taking Pelusium and Bilbeys by siege, and fighting a battle with the Romans at Umm-Duneyn, a suburb which stood near the present ‘Abdin palace, attacked the city of “Misr” or “Babylon of Egypt.” This city was a northern extension or successor of the decayed but then still existing Egyptian capital Memphis, about twelve miles distant from the present Cairo, and had grown up under the protection of the Roman fortress of Babylon. It was evidently strongly defended, for the Arab general had to summon reinforcements, till his army mustered 12,000, before he could attack it.

“‘Amr divided his forces into three corps, one of which he posted to the north of Babylon; the second was stationed at Tendunyas [probably the Umm-Duneyn of the Arabic writers], and the third withdrew northwards to Heliopolis, in the hope of tempting the Romans out of their fortifications, upon which the other two corps were to fall on their rear or flank. The manœuvre succeeded. The Romans marched out of their fortifications, and attacked the Saracens at Heliopolis, but, being themselves taken in rear by the other divisions, were routed and driven to the Nile, when they took to their boats and fled down the river. Upon this the Muslims occupied Tendunyas, the garrison of which had perished in the battle, except 300 men, who shut themselves up in the fort, whence they retired by boat to Nikiu. The taking of Tendunyas was evidently followed by, or synonymous with, the taking of the whole city of Misr, except its citadel, which was blockaded; for John of Nikiu, from whose almost contemporary chronicle this account is taken, mentions no subsequent siege or conquest of the city of Misr, but only the reduction of the fortress.”[3]

Whatever this city of Misr or Tendunyas may have been, it vanishes from history as soon as it is conquered. The last we hear of it is in the treaty of capitulation granted by ‘Amr, which ran as follows:—

“In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful, this is the amnesty which ‘Amr ibn el-‘Asy granted to the people of Misr, as to themselves, their religion, their goods, their churches and crosses, their lands and waters: nothing of these shall be meddled with or minished; the Nubians shall not be permitted to dwell among them. And the people of Misr, if they enter into this treaty of peace, shall pay the poll-tax, when the inundation of their river has subsided, fifty millions. And each one of them is responsible for [acts of violence that] robbers among them may commit. And as for those who will not enter into this treaty, the sum of the tax shall be diminished [to the rest] in proportion, but we have no responsibility towards such. If the rise of the Nile is less than usual, the tax shall be reduced in proportion to the decrease. Romans and Nubians who enter into this treaty shall be treated in the like manner. And whoso rejects [it] and chooses to go away, he is protected until he reach a place of safety or leave our kingdom. The collection of the taxes shall be by thirds, one third at each time. For [sureties for] this covenant stand the security and warranty of God, the warranty of His Prophet, and the warranty of the Caliph, the commander of the faithful, and the warranty of the [true] believers. . . . Witnessed by ez-Zubeyr and his sons ‘Abdallah and Mohammad, and written by Wardan.”

The Arab historians connect this treaty—which has all the appearance of being an authentic document, literally copied—expressly with the surrender of the city of Misr after the battle of Heliopolis; but as Misr means Egypt as well as its capital the document itself only proves that the Arab conqueror accorded very generous terms to the people of Egypt; it says nothing explicit as to the town of Misr, the name of which was shortly to be transferred to Fustát, whilst the place thereof was known no more. The only explanation seems to be that the Egyptian city decayed as the Arab town grew, and that the population migrated to the neighbouring and more prosperous settlement. The remains of walls south of “Old Misr” may represent part of the site. The disappearance of an Egyptian town is unhappily far from unprecedented. Memphis itself has vanished, all save a few traces of walls and fallen statues; “hundred- gated” Thebes survives only in her temples; and the reason is that the ancient Egyptian built his abode of perishable sun-dried brick, and lavished his massive stone work only upon the tombs of the great dead and the temples of the immortal gods.

Whatever became of the city, a fortress of Babylon stands to this day. Its reduction cost the Arabs a seven months’ siege. The battle of Heliopolis was won in the late summer of 640, and it was not till April 641 that the fortress was conquered. A leading part in the surrender of the place is ascribed to a mysterious personage, “the Mukawkis,” as the Arabs termed the governor of Egypt.[4] According to the Arab traditions it was he who negotiated the treaty cited above, which secured to the Egyptians freedom of religion and security of life, and when the Byzantine emperor Heraclius repudiated the treaty, the Mukawkis stuck to his word and threw in his lot with the Arabs, whose valour and simple earnestness deeply impressed him. When his envoys returned from an embassy to the Saracens’ camp, he asked them what manner of men the Muslims were, and they answered, “We found a people who love death better than life, and set humility above pride, who have no desire or enjoyment in this world, who sit in the dust and eat upon their knees, but frequently and thoroughly wash, and humble themselves in prayer; a people in whom the stronger can scarce be distinguished from the weaker, or the master from the slave.” Such a character was new to the Egyptians, who had long suffered under the corruption and luxury of the Eastern Roman Empire, and, whatever part the Mukawkis personally may have played in what has been called the betrayal of Christian Egypt, it is certain that the population abetted the invaders.

Although Christianity had been the official religion of Egypt since the Edict of Theodosius in 379, there was still a strong leaven of the old local cults, and, more important still, there was a vigorous tendency to nationalism both of church and state. The rule of Byzantium had never been gracious to the Egyptian province; the Orthodox Church had been tyrannous; and when at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 the Eutychian heresy maintained by the Egyptian bishops was formally condemned, the schism became irrevocable. From that time forward there were two churches in Egypt, the State Church (or Orthodox Greek), supported from Constantinople, and known as the Melekite or “Royalist,” and the national church, afterwards called Jacobite, and generally known as the Coptic Church. Copt is etymologically the same word as Egyptian (Greek, Aiguptios; Arabic, Kibt and Kubt; English, Copt), and the Coptic Church means nothing less than the Church of Egypt as separated by the adoption of the heresy of Eutyches. The Egyptian Christians were as much Copts before as after the Council of Chalcedon; but it was their devotion to a metaphysical definition, which very few of them could possibly understand, that made them a distinct church, and to this they owe at once their misfortunes and their historical interest. By their adhesion to the first Nicæan doctrine of the single nature of Christ they exposed themselves to persecution and courted isolation, and sharing in none of the developments of the other churches, they preserved in their scanty and neglected community, unchanged for nearly fifteen hundred years, the ancient tradition and ritual of the fifth century. It was their implacable hatred of the Royalists that threw them into the arms of the Muslim invaders. By the advice of their exiled patriarch they helped the Arabs from the moment of their setting foot upon Egyptian soil. Eager to rid themselves of Byzantine rule, and still more of the Royalist hierarchy, they embraced they knew not what as a preferable alternative; and after the Mukawkis, aided, according to tradition, by a _catholicos_ (probably Cyrus, Royalist patriarch of Alexandria), had succeeded in obtaining a generous amnesty from the Arab general, the Copts rendered every aid to the Muslims, assisted them with labour at bridge-making, and brought them supplies. They soon discovered that they had only exchanged masters, but the Arab, despite his haughty assumption of superiority and his occasional outbursts of persecution, was a gentler tyrant than the Roman of the Lower Empire.

Deprived of all support from the population, the Roman garrison of Babylon surrendered in April 641. The Delta was quickly overrun, and the Romans fell back upon Alexandria, which, distracted by factions and deprived of competent leaders, yielded to panic, and eagerly accepted ‘Amr’s magnanimous terms. By the surrender of the Roman capital in October 641, the Arab conquest of Egypt was complete. There was no further resistance worthy the name. The Muslims spread over the land up to the first cataract of the Nile, and Egypt became a province of the caliphate.

On his return from Alexandria ‘Amr founded the Town of the Tent. The great port on the Mediterranean was no suitable capital for Arab tribes, whose inexperience magnified the terrors of the deep. Alexandria, moreover, was liable at the period of Nile inundation to be cut off from the centre of Arab power at Medina, and the caliph ‘Omar, not yet inspired by dreams of a vast Muslim empire, was chiefly anxious to keep in touch with the army of Egypt. ‘Amr indeed wished to retain Alexandria as the capital. “Behold an abode made ready for us,” he said. But when the caliph heard of it, he asked, “Will there be water between me and the army of the Muslims?” and the answer was, “Yes, O commander of the faithful, there will be the Nile,” so he set his face against Alexandria. He regarded the new conquest as a barrack rather than a colony. ‘Amr accordingly was bidden to choose a more central position, and found it some ten miles north of the remains of the ancient capital of Memphis, on the site of the camp which lay before the castle of Babylon. An old canal, the Amnis Trajanus, had formerly connected Babylon with the Red Sea at Suez, running past Bilbeys and the Crocodile Lake, and this was immediately cleared of silt and reopened, so that tribute and corn were sent by water to Arabia, and close relations were thus maintained with the caliph.

The Town of the Tent owes its name to a pretty legend, which may very probably be true. When ‘Amr led his Arabs against the old capital of Egypt, he pitched his tent on the spot where his mosque now stands. After the surrender of the castle of Babylon he marched upon Alexandria; but when the soldiers went to strike his tent, they found that a dove had laid her eggs within and was sitting on her nest. ‘Amr at once declared the spot sacred, and ordered them not to disturb her; and when on the return from the conquest of Alexandria the army set about building quarters for themselves, ‘Amr bade them settle around his still standing tent, and the first Arab city of Egypt was ever afterwards known as el-Fustát, “the Tent,” or Misr-el-Fustát, or simply Misr. The whole space between the Nile and the hill Mukattam, on a spur of which stands the present Citadel, was bare at that time. There was nothing but “waste land and sown fields,” and no buildings except some churches or convents, and the Roman fortress of Babylon, or Babelyún, known to the Arabs to this day as the Kasr-esh-Shema‘ or “Castle of the Beacon,” because (says the Topographer, el-Makrízy) “this Kasr was illuminated on the summit with candles [in Arabic _shema‘_] on the first night of every month,” to serve as a kalendar; but it is possible, as Dr Butler has suggested, that the name is merely a corruption of Kasr-el-_Khemi_, the “Castle of Egypt,” and that the beacon story was invented to explain it.[5]

Why ‘Amr did not occupy the old city of Misr we do not know: everything connected with that vanished town is a mystery. Elsewhere the Arabs had no scruple about taking possession of older cities, such as Damascus and Edessa; but in Egypt they preferred to take fresh ground. Misr may have been too small; or it is possible that the caliph’s orders that they were not to acquire property and take root in the country led to the original occupation of the bare stretch of land between Babylon and the Mukattam hills. The first settlement undoubtedly resembled a temporary camp rather than a city. They wanted plenty of space to separate the various tribes who composed the Arab army, and who, despite their Muslim brotherhood, were liable to recall their ancient jealousies. The site they chose was ample and almost unencumbered. The tract was known as the three Hamras or “red” spots[6]—the Nearer, the Middle, and the Further Hamra—apparently from the red standard which was set up in the midst.

The Arab clans divided the three tracts amongst them and laid out their settlements, from the fortress to where the mosque of Ibn-Tulún now stands. In the midst was the general’s house, and close to it rose the first mosque built in Egypt, the “Mosque of Conquest,” the “Crown of Mosques,” as it was proudly called, but known later as the “Old Mosque,” and now as the Mosque of ‘Amr. It was originally a very plain oblong room, about 200 feet long by 56 wide, built of rough brick, unplastered, with a low roof supported probably by a few columns, with holes for light. There was no minaret, no niche for prayer, no decoration, no pavement. Even the pulpit which ‘Amr set up was removed when the caliph wrote in reproach, “Is it not enough for thee to stand whilst the Muslims sit at thy feet?” For it was the duty of the conqueror to recite the prayers and preach the Friday sermon in this humble building. It soon became too small for the growing population of Fustát, and was enlarged in 673 by taking in part of the house of ‘Amr; and at the same time raised stations—the germ of the minaret—were erected at the corners for the muézzins to recite the call to prayer. Twenty-five years later the entire mosque was demolished by a later governor who rebuilt it on a larger scale. So many and thorough have been the repairs and reconstructions that there is probably not a foot of the original building now in existence. What we see to-day is practically the mosque rebuilt in 827 by ‘Abdallah ibn Táhir, and restored by Murád Bey in 1798, just before he engaged the French in the “battle of the Pyramids” at Embába. It is four times the size of the original mosque, and different in every respect.[7]

The “Old Mosque,” as the Topographer calls it, was intensely revered in early times. It was there that the chief Kady held his court, and learned men congregated in its arcades. It was a rallying point for orthodoxy in times of schism and obtrusive heresies. When Fustát was burned in 1168 the mosque escaped, though much injured, and Saladin restored it; “where he found wood and stone he left marble.” But it was as hopeless to maintain its popularity, when the town it belonged to was in ashes, as it would be to induce the dwellers in Belgravia to attend the services at Bow Bells. Fustát mostly in ruins, the congregation dispersed, and the mosque of ‘Amr fell upon evil days. Ibn-Sa‘íd, a Moorish traveller of the thirteenth century, found the sacred building covered with cobwebs, and scrawled over with the ribald _graffiti_ of loafers and vagabonds, the remains of whose victuals littered the floor. There were few worshippers, and much unseemliness. “Musicians, and ape- leaders, and conjurers, and mountebanks, and dancing-girls,” says the historian Gabárty in the eighteenth century, desecrated the court, and so decrepit did the building become that even these abandoned it. If Murád Bey had not been “anxious about his soul,” for very good reasons, and made peace with his conscience by spending some of his ill-gotten gains upon the pious work of restoration, the “Crown of Mosques” would have disappeared altogether. In the early part of the nineteenth century it was still a favourite place of prayer for the people of Cairo on the last Friday of the Fast of Ramadán. “It is believed that God will receive with particular favour the prayers which are offered up in this ancient mosque; therefore, when the Nile is tardy in rising, and the people fear a scanty inundation and a consequent scarcity, the principal Sheykhs and Imáms and learned and devout Muslims of the metropolis are ordered to betake themselves to the mosque of ‘Amr to pray for an increase of the river, together with the priests of the various Christian churches and their congregations, and likewise the Jews; each of these persuasions arranged by itself, without the mosque. Public prayers were thus offered up for rain in this consecrated spot by Muslims, Christians and Jews, in a time of unusual drought about twenty years ago [_i.e._ 1825-8], and on the following day it rained.”[8]

The outside of the oldest mosque in Egypt is not impressive. Among the rubbish-hills that mark the site of the Town of the Tent, its long grey walls, without windows or the least attempt at ornament, look dreary, and the two plain minarets are equally unpretentious. But within, despite decay and the loneliness of neglect, the vast empty court of some forty thousand square feet, surrounded by colonnades, and the forest of columns supporting the roof of the east end, the special place of prayer, wholly dominate all mean details. Crowded with worshippers in the rhythmic bowings of the Muslim ritual it must have been a wonderful and solemn vision. The arches are of various ages, and the columns, taken from churches, show the most diverse capitals, not always put the right side up; the arcades do not run parallel to the walls, like cloisters round a cathedral close, but open at right angles into the court. Wooden beams stretch from column to column to support hanging lamps, of which eighteen thousand were lighted every night in former times, and the effect in the long vistas must have been superb. Those nights of illumination are long over, and the conqueror’s mosque is a melancholy ruin, the loneliness of which appeals to the imagination to people it with the zealous groups of scholars and divines, fanatics and doctors learned in the law, fakírs and holy men, who once bowed before its deserted _kibla_. Not even the mark of the blessed Prophet’s _kurbág_ on the grey marble of the pillar, which, urged by the blow—despite all considerations of chronology—flew through the air from Mekka when ‘Amr was building the mosque, nor the twin test columns between which only true believers can squeeze (and even a Turkish soldier stuck and almost died), avail to attract worshippers to the old shrine except on very special occasions. Yet it is prophesied that the fall of the mosque of ‘Amr will be the sign of the downfall of Islám, and it is strange that a superstitious people are not more careful of their omens.

The original mosque of the Arab conqueror has gone, but at least its representative stands on the hallowed site. One cannot say as much for Fustát, the Town of the Tent, which he founded. Whatever may remain of this great city, which was the capital and the river-port of Egypt for five centuries, lies hidden under the wilderness of sand-hills which cover the débris and kitchen-middens of the mediæval town. Here, after a strong wind has stirred the sand, you may sometimes chance to pick up curious fragments of glass and pottery, Roman lamps, coins, glass-bottle stamps with inscriptions recording the names of eighth century governors, and such-like relics of what was once Fustát. Of its houses, its governors’ palaces, its baths and schools, not a stone or brick remains. The “granaries of Joseph” certainly date back at least to that later Joseph, Saladin, for Benjamin of Tudela saw them in 1170; but Masr-el-Atíka, or “Old Cairo,” is built on land which was covered by the Nile in the days when Fustát was the capital. The rest is desolation. We shall catch many glimpses of its history in chapters to come, and read the descriptions of it written by Persian and Moorish travellers from the east and the west, but such descriptions do not enable us to realize the vanished Arab city.

One monument, however, of the age of the conquest still survives, but it is not Arab. The Roman fortress of Babylon, the “Castle of the Beacon,” stands where it once overlooked the Muslims’ tents and saw the Arab capital growing up beneath its walls. To understand why it was called Babylon, or as some say Bab-li-On, “the gate of On,” we must go to Mataríya, a few miles north of Cairo, where stands a solitary obelisk, sole relic of On or Heliopolis, the “City of the Sun.” In the plain of Mataríya, before this lonely stone, the Turks fought the final battle that won Cairo from the Mamlúks in 1517, and here Kléber gained his victory in 1800 over the Turks. There stood the famous temple of On of which Potipherah, the father of Joseph’s wife, was priest; here Pianchi, the Ethiopian priest-king, eight centuries B.C., washed at the “Fountain of the Sun,” and made offerings of white bulls, milk, perfume, incense, and all kinds of sweet-scented woods, and entering the temple “saw his father Ra [the sun-god] in the sanctuary.” Heliopolis was the university of the most ancient civilization in the world, the forerunner of all the schools of Europe. Here, in all probability, Moses was instructed by the priests of Ra in “all the wisdom of the Egyptians”; here, too, Herodotus cross-questioned the same priesthood with varying success; here Plato came to study, and Eudoxus the mathematician to learn astronomy; and here Strabo was shown the houses where the famous Greeks had lived. Of this seat of learning and focus of religion nothing but the obelisk remains. “The images of Beth-Shemesh” (the “House of the Sun”) have indeed been “broken,” and “the houses of the Egyptians’ gods” have been “burned with fire.”[9]

Beside the obelisk is an ancient sycamore, riven with age and hacked with numberless names, beneath which tradition hath it that the Holy Family rested in their flight into Egypt, and it is hence known as the “Virgin’s Tree.” Near by is a spring of fresh water—a rare sight in this brackish land—which, it is said, became sweet because the Bambino was bathed there. From the spots where the drops fell from his swaddling clothes, after they, too, had been washed in this sacred spring, sprang up balsam-trees, which, it was believed, flourished nowhere else. There is no evidence for these fancies, and, of course, the sycamore is but a descendant of the supposed original, as it was not planted till after 1672. But the circumstances that a temple was built by the Hebrew Onias for the worship of his countrymen near here, and that Jewish gardeners were brought here for the culture of the balsam-trees, give the tale a certain fitness.

Heliopolis is no more, but its guardian fortress, the “gate of On” still defies time and the restorers’ hands, and the name of Babylon of Egypt, applied to the capital (Fustát) as well as the fort, appears frequently in the mediæval chronicles and romances. When Richard Cœur de Lion defeated Saladin, the romance relates,

“The cheff Sawdon off Hethenysse

To Babyloyne was flowen, I wysse.”

Whether or not there is any foundation for the tradition reported by Strabo and Diodorus that the castle was first built by exiles from the greater Babylon of Chaldæa, the present fortress dates from the third or possibly the second century of our era. The exterior is imposing, though the walls have been injured, and the sand has buried their feet. The greater part of the oblong outline is still sufficiently distinguishable, and five bastions and two circular towers are well preserved. The walls are built in the usual Roman manner, five courses of stone alternating with three of brick—the origin, probably, of the striped red and yellow decoration of the Muslim mosques and houses—and their massive aspect even now makes one realize how much the capture of such a stronghold must have meant to the early Arabs.

When we enter the stronghold the strange character of the fortress grows upon us. Passing through narrow lanes, narrower and darker and dustier even than the back alleys of Cairo, we are struck by the deadly stillness of the place. The high houses that shut in the street have little of the lattice ornament that adorns the thoroughfares of Cairo; the grated windows are small and few, and but for an occasional heavy door half open, and here and there the sound of a voice in the recesses of the houses, we might question whether the fortress was inhabited at all. Nothing, certainly, indicates that these plain walls contain six sumptuous churches, with their dependent chapels, each of which is full of carvings, pictures, vestments and furniture, which in their way cannot be matched. A Coptic church is like a Mohammedan harím—it must not appear from the outside. Just as the studiously plain exterior of many a Cairo house reveals nothing of the latticed court within, surrounded by rooms where inlaid dados, tiles, carved and painted ceilings, and magnificent carpets, glow in the soft light of the stained windows, so a Coptic church makes no outward show. High walls hide everything from view. The Copts are shy of visitors, and the plain exteriors are a sufficient proof of their desire to escape that notice which in bygone days aroused cupidity and fanaticism.

After passing through a strong gateway, and traversing a vestibule, or ascending some stairs, you find yourself in a small but beautifully finished basilica, gazing at a carved choir-screen that any cathedral in England might envy. In the dim light you see rows of valiant saints looking down at you from above the sanctuary and over the screens, and great golden texts in Coptic and Arabic, to the glory of God; while above, the arches of the triforium over the aisles show where other treasures of art are probably to be found. The general plan of a Coptic church is basilican, but there are many points of wide divergence from the strict pattern; the Byzantine feature of the dome is almost universal, and sometimes the whole building is roofed over with a cluster of a dozen domes. The church consists of a nave and side aisles, waggon-vaulted (exactly like the early Irish churches, and like no others), and very rarely has transepts, or approaches the cruciform shape. The sparse marble columns that divide the nave from the aisles generally return round the west end, and form a narthex or counterchoir, where is sunk the Epiphany tank, once the scene of complete immersions, but now used only for the feet-washing of Maundy Thursday. The church is also divided cross-wise into three principal sections, besides the narthex. The rearmost is the women’s place, whom the judicious Copts put behind the men, and thereby prevent any disturbance of devotions much more effectually than if the two sexes were ranged side by side as in some Western churches. A lattice-work screen divides the women’s portion from the men’s, which is always much larger and more richly decorated, and the men’s division is similarly partitioned off from the choir by another screen, while the altars, three in number, are placed each in a separate apse, surmounted by a complete (not semicircular) dome, and veiled by the most gorgeous screen of all, formed of ivory and ebony crosses and geometrical panels, superbly carved with arabesques, and surmounted by pictures and golden texts in Coptic and Arabic letters.[10] During the celebration the central folding doors are thrown back, the silver-embroidered curtain is withdrawn, and the high altar is displayed to the adoring congregation, just as it is in the impressive ceremonial of St Isaac’s cathedral at St Petersburg. The carved doors and the silver-thread curtain, the swinging lamps and pendent ostrich eggs, prepare us for something more gorgeous than the nearly cubical plastered brick or stone altar, with its silk covering, and the invariable recess in the east side, which originally had a more mystic signification, but is now only used for the burying of the cross in a bed of rose-leaves on Good Friday, whence it will be disinterred on Easter-day. The Coptic altar stands detached from the wall of the sanctuary, which is often coated with slabs of coloured marble, like the dados one sees in the mosques, or with mosaic of the peculiar Egyptian style; while above are painted panels or frescoes representing the twelve apostles, with Christ in the midst in the act of benediction. Over the altar spreads a canopy or baldacchino, which is also richly painted with figures of angels. The central sanctuary with its altar is divided off from the side altars by lattice screens.

A curious part of the furniture is the Ark, which holds the chalice during the rite of consecration; and scarcely less interesting is the flabellum, or fan for keeping gnats off the chalice, which is often exquisitely fashioned of repoussé silver. Similar fans are represented in the Irish Book of Kells. There is never a crucifix, but reliquaries are not uncommon, though their place is not on the altar. The Coptic church forbids the worship of relics, but every church has its bolster full of them, and the devout believer attaches considerable importance to their curative properties. Sometimes the most beautiful object in metal-work in a Coptic church is the silver textus-case—corresponding to the Irish _cumhdach_—in which the copy of the Gospels is supposed to be sealed up, though generally a few leaves alone remain inside. It is often a fine example of silver chasing and repoussé work, and is reverently brought from the altar where it reposes to the officiating deacon, who places it on the lectern while he reads from another copy. The lectern itself is a favourite subject for decoration. That from the Mu‘állaka church, now in the Coptic cathedral at Cairo, is covered with the beautiful inlaid and carved panelling which is familiar in the doors and pulpits of mosques.

Of the six churches contained within the fortress of Babylon, three are of the highest interest; for, though the Greek church of St George, perched on the top of the round tower, is finely decorated with Damascus and Rhodian tiles and silver lamps, the Roman tower itself, with its central well, great staircase, and curious radiating chambers, is more interesting than the church above it. Of the three principal Coptic churches, that of St Sergius, or Abu-Sarga, is the most often visited, on account of the tradition that it was in its crypt that the Holy Family rested when they journeyed to the land of Egypt. The crypt is certainly many centuries older than the church above it, which dates from the tenth century. The church itself is notable for a fine screen, and close to it a remarkable specimen of early Coptic figure-carving, with representations of the nativity and of warrior saints in high relief. Another example of this style of deep carving exists in the triforium of the church of Saint Barbara.

Besides Abu-Sarga and Kadísa-Barbára, there remains a third and very interesting Coptic church to be mentioned. This is suspended between two bastions of the Roman wall, over a gate with a classical pediment and a sculptured eagle. It is called from its position the Mu‘állaka or “hanging” church. It is remarkable in many ways, partly for being the oldest of the Babylon churches, and partly on account of the entire absence of domes. The Mu‘állaka has other peculiarities: it has absolutely no choir—the daïs in front of the shallow eastern apses has to serve the purpose; and it is double aisled on the north side.—The carved screen in the north aisle has the unique property of being filled in with thin ivory panels, which must have shone with a rosy tint when the lamps behind were lighted. The sculptured pulpit is especially beautiful; it stands on “fifteen delicate Saracenic columns, arranged in seven pairs, with a leader.” Not the least curious part about the “suspended” church is its hanging garden, where the bold experiment of planting palms in mid air has succeeded in perpetuating the tradition that it was here that the Virgin first broke fast with a meal of dates on her arrival in Egypt.

This is not the place to enter into the doctrine and ritual of the Coptic church. The appalling Lenten fast of the Copts, which lasts fifty-five days, and involves total abstinence from food from sunrise to sunset during each of those days, no doubt suggested the only less rigorous Muslim fast of Ramadán. The Coptic sacrament of matrimony has certain elements of the grotesque in it; but most of the ceremonial of the church possesses a dignity and the sweet savour of antiquity which must redeem any minor absurdities. No one can stand unmoved in a Coptic church during the celebration of the Mass, or hear the worshippers shout with one voice, just as they did some fifteen hundred years ago, the loud response, “I believe This is the Truth,” without emotion. Through fiery persecution they have clung to their truth with a heroism that is only the more wonderful when we consider their weakness; and however partial and ignorant their interpretation of truth, we cannot withhold the respect that is the due of those who have come out of great tribulation and remained steadfast to their faith.