of two marble columns, and the top of a pointed arch vaulted like a shell inside. The interior of the niche is beautifully adorned with three tiers of arches (the first pointed, the second round, and the third trefoil) supported by dwarf columns, one above the other, and divided by arabesque borders and bands of greenstone. The backgrounds of the arches behind the dwarf columns are alternately of red and green marble. The shell-like top of the niche is decorated with marbles arranged in rays, and the facing of the arch itself is treated with the common zigzag ornament, which is seen so frequently round arches and over doors in Cairo. The effect of the whole is extremely rich, and the details are finished with infinite care and skill. A Kūfy inscription (fig. 9) of large bold characters within fine borders runs round the sanctuary just above the marbles, and overlaps the edges of the arch. Above this, in the east wall, are two windows, each of two lights with a circular light above, and a central round aperture. In front of the niche, a little on the left hand (as you face the court), stands the pulpit, a staircase enclosed by high sides, and ending in a small platform surmounted by a cupola supported by a column on either side. pulpits are of carved and panelled wood, Hasan is of coloured marbles arranged in Further in front, nearer the court, is the dikka, or tribune, which in most mosques is a light structure of wood, but here is of stone and marble, and rests upon solid piers and columns, with very graceful columns let into the corners, and formed of alternate zigzag drums of white, black, and yellow marble. From the top of the arch hang seventy-seven cords, to which are fastened as many small glass lamps, and many more are suspended from the simple gallows brackets which are ranged along the side walls, about half-way between the dado and the Arabic inscription. A large bronze chandelier hanging from the keystone of the great arch completes the furniture of the sanctuary.

Most

but that of Sultan circular medallions.

By a beautiful bronze-plated door, on either side of the niche, we obtain access to the sepulchral chapel of the Sultan who caused all this wonderful building to be erected for the honour of his Creator and himself. This is the portion of the mosque which underlies the dome. It is sixty-nine feet square, and is surrounded on all sides with fine tablets of. coloured marbles, forming a dado of the height of twenty-five feet or more, and broken by eleven arches, either blind or with doors closing cupboards, and including a niche in the east wall resembling in design the niche of the inner wall already described. Over the marbles is the "Throne Verse" from the Koran (ch. ii. v. 256) carved in wood, and forming a frieze all round, interrupted only by medallions containing the name of the Sultan; the usual lamp brackets are fixed above the frieze. Higher up still are the windows, which are badly planned; most of the glass is gone, and what remains resembles common bottle glass. Above are fine wooden stalactites, painted and gilt, marking the transition from the square to the dome. The founder's tomb is a plain marble grave, enclosed in a simple wooden railing :—the whole chapel is the true tomb. It should be noted that the tomb chapel is not surrounded like the rest of the mosque by offices, schools, and chambers of all sorts; it stands out clear from everything, and three of its sides are outside walls, the fourth being the east wall of the sanctuary.

Such is the great mosque of Sultan Hasan. It forms a typical example of the cruciform mosque, although its materials are much more substantial and costly than usual, and its size far transcends all other mosques of this plan. In none other do we find the same noble span of arch, the same lavish display of marbles; in a word, the same grandeur. But there are many mosques in Cairo that are more pleasing than that of Sultan Hasan, whose broad surfaces of unrelieved plaster find inadequate compensation in the rich but heavy mosaics of the sanctuary wall. And in spite of its imposing proportions, there is something ungainly about the exterior of this big mosque; the stone walls, besides the defect of being un

parallel, seem heavy and insufficiently relieved; the dome, being modern, is unsightly; and the minarets do not balance. For a very different specimen of a mosque of the same cruciform plan, let us glance at the illustration (frontispiece) of the mausoleum of Kaït Bey, another Mamluk Sultan, and the prince of Cairo builders. This mosque is situate in that wonderful wilderness of exquisite domes and minarets known as the great or eastern Karāfa or cemetery, and also as the Karāfa of Kāït Bey par excellence. Here we see the dome and minaret in their utmost perfection, and the proportions of the cruciform mosque most admirably displayed. The exterior is fluted with shallow recesses like Sultan Hasan's, in which the windows are set, and is striped red and white, in imitation, no doubt, of the ancient Roman buildings of Egypt, where courses of red brick alternate with a row of white stone. The effect is not so unpleasant as might be imagined; for when time has softened the red ochre, the zebra-like walls seem suited to the character of the architecture.* The door is set in a deep recess like that of Sultan Hasan, but on a smaller scale; and the details of such doors may be better seen in the engraving (fig. 10), which represents a gateway of another mosque of the same Sultan within the city of Cairo. Kaït Bey's mosques, and those generally of a late period, are much more elaborately decorated than early cloistered mosques like Ibn-Tūlūn. We have seen that the ornament in the latter consists chiefly in bands and friezes running round and above the arches, and in the mosaics in the sanctuary. In Kaït Bey's mosques the triangular spaces between the arches and the square of the court are filled with arabesque scrolls carved in stone; the keystone and every alternate stone in the arch is similarly ornamented; the interior doors are surmounted by

* It is worth noticing that the courses of stone in a mosque or house are always 13 or 14 inches high, and are hardly ever subdivided. The windows, doors, and ornament are therefore regulated by the courses, and are four or six courses, or whatever the number, and not four-and-a-half, &c. It is thus easy to calculate the height of a building of stone by counting its courses.