all that can be attempted.

The rule of the Fatimy Kh indeed is recorded to have been signalized by extraordin artistic productiveness: but too few examples of this period h come down to us to justify us in giving it a rank equal to that the Mamluks.

The history of Mohammadan Egypt falls into eight division (1) the period of governors appointed by the Khalifs of Damas and of Baghdad A.D. 641-868); (2) the dynasty of Tūlūn (3) an interval of governors appointed by the Khalifs of Baghd

A.H. 21-254

254-292 868-904

(292-323); (4) the dynasty of Ikhshid (323-358) ; (5) the Fatin

904-935

935-969

567-648

Khalifs (358-567); (6) the Ayyuby house of Saladin (1177-1250)

648-922

969-11714

(7) the Mamluks, Turkish (Bahry) and Circassian (Burgy) (120-1316); and (8) the period of Turkish Pashas, ending in th dynasty of Mohammad 'Aly (Mehemet Ali).

1. In A.D. 639, the eighteenth year after the Higra or Flight of Mohammad from Mekka to Medina, 'Amr, the general of the Khalif 'Omar, invaded the Egyptian province of the Byzantine empire. Aided by the factious divisions which sundered the Greek and Coptic Christians, and made the latter eager to welcome any invader who would bring down the arrogance of the Melekites, 'Amr was soon able to march on Alexandria, the first city of the East, and after a siege of fourteen months, on the first day of the Mohammadan year 21 (10th December 641), captured it. The victorious general was named the first Muslim governor of Egypt, and the spot where he pitched his tent (in Arabic, Fustat) became the site of the new capital of Egypt, El-Fustāt, which speedily grew to handsome proportions. From the time of 'Amr, A.H. 21, to the appointment of Ibn-Tūlūn in A.H. 254, a period of 233 years, 98 governors, nominated by the Khalifs of Damascus and Baghdad, ruled the province of Misr or Egypt (the name Misr is given both to the country and to its capital); and as some of these enjoyed more than one term of office, there were 105 changes of

government in 233 years, giving an average of about two years and a quarter for each governor. A ruler liable to be removed at any moment, and enjoying so brief a term of office, was not likely to occupy himself with the embellishment of a capital which after a few months' or years' reign he might never see again, and he probably directed his energies, like a Turkish Pasha, to accumulating all the wealth he could with his brief opportunities. We have no monuments of the period of the governors, with the exception of the mosque of 'Amr, at Fustat, which has been too often restored to furnish trustworthy evidence as to the style of architecture or decoration. The governors indeed built other edifices; the representatives of the 'Abbasy Khalifs founded in 133 a new quarter of the capital, adjoining Fustat, which was called El-'Askar, or 66 the Camp," because the soldiers first had their quarters there; and here they erected a government house and a mosque, of which, however, no trace now remains. El'Askar was never more than an official quarter: the capital was still Fustat.

2. Ahmad Ibn-Tülün was a Turkish governor appointed by the ‘Abbāsy Khalif, in 868, but after a year he asserted his independence, while still rendering homage to the Khalif as his spiritual lord by retaining his name on the coinage and in the public prayers. Ibn-Tulun was the first Mohammadan ruler who founded a dynasty in Egypt; he was also the first to unite Syria with Egypt, as did all independent sovereigns of Egypt afterwards; and he was the first great encourager of Saracenic Art; for he abandoned the old government house at El-'Askar, and built a new suburb, connecting that quarter with the citadel hill, which he called El-Katai", or "the Wards," either because a large part of it was given in feof to the numerous colonels of his 30,000 troops, or because the new suburb was partitioned into various quarters allotted to different nations and separate trades. Both El-'Askar and El-Katai' were fashionable suburbs, where the nobility and men of position resided; and the streets were full of splendid

.

houses. But the glory of the latest suburb was the mosque Ibn-Tūlūn, of which we shall have more to say hereafter. is the first undoubted example of true Saracenic art in Egy and one of the noblest monuments in the East. Ibn-Tūlūn al built himself a stately palace, with a meydan or race-cour attached, where the Sultan and his courtiers played at pol One of the many splendid gates of this meydan was called th "Gate of Lions," because it was surmounted by two lions i plaster; another was called the Sāg gate, since it was made o that wood. Around rose the handsome palaces of the generals the mosques and the baths; the windmills and brick-kilns; the great hospital; the markets for the assayers, perfumers, cloth merchants, fruiterers, cooks, and other trades, all well built and densely populated. The palace, mosque, race-course, and hospital, together cost a sum of nearly 300,000 dinārs of gold; and the annual revenue from taxes, to meet this vast outlay, and the expenses of government, was placed at 4,300,000 dinārs. To which fact may be added the instructive comment that at the time of Ahmad's death no less than 18,000 persons were found in the prisons. His son Khumaraweyh, who succeeded in 883, carried this passion of splendid luxury to its height. He turned the meydan into a garden, filled with lilies, gilliflowers, saffron, and palms and trees of all sorts, the trunks of which he coated with copper gilt, behind which leaden pipes supplied fountains which gushed forth to water the garden. In the midst rose an aviary tower of sag wood; the walls were carved with figures and painted with various colours. Peacocks, guinea-fowls, doves and pigeons, with rare birds from Nubia, had their home in the garden and aviary. There was also a menagerie, and especially a blue-eyed lion who crouched beside his master when he sat at table, and guarded him when he slept. In the palace, Khumāraweyh built the "Golden Hall," the walls whereof were covered with gold and azure, in admirable designs, and varied by bas-reliefs of himself and his wives (if we are to credit the historians), and even of the prime

donne of the court. They were carved in wood, life-size, and painted with exquisite art, so that the folds of the drapery seemed natural; they wore crowns of pure gold and turbans set with precious stones, and jewelled earrings. Such figures are unparalleled in Saracenic art; yet the account is too detailed to be altogether a fiction. But the chief wonder of Khumaraweyh's palace remains to be described: it was a lake of quicksilver. On the surface of the lake, lay a leather bed inflated with air, fastened by silk bands to four silver supports at the corners ; here alone the insomnolent sovereign could take his rest. Of all these marvels, and the splendid harim rooms, the spacious stables, the furniture, wine-cups, rich silk robes, inlaid swords, and shields of steel, nothing has come down to us. We are obliged to take the mosque of Ibn-Tūlūn as witness to the consummate luxury and artistic eminence of the period.

3. After the fall of the dynasty of Tūlūn, owing to the weakness of the later members of the family, who paid the common penalty of their Capua, governors appointed by the Khalifs once more exercised their monotonous sway over Egypt, and again there is nothing to record in works of art.

4. Nor did the accession of Mohammad El-Ikhshid, in 935, bring any change for the better in this respect. El-Ikhshid followed the example of Ibn-Tūlūn, and made himself independent ruler of both Egypt and Syria, but he left no great works behind him, nor did his dynasty contribute to the monuments of the Saracens. His two sons were under the tutorship of the eunuch Abu-l-Misk Kāfür, "Father of Musk, Camphor," who ruled the kingdom well, kept a generous open table, where 1700 pounds of meat were consumed daily, but was unable to resist the invasion of the Fatimy Khalif, El-Mu'izz, who conquered Egypt in 969, and Syria in the following year, and also annexed the Arabian provinces of the Higāz and the Yemen.

5. Hitherto the rulers of Egypt had been at least appointed by the lawful heads of the Mohammadan Empire, the Khalifs, first of

Damascus, and then of Baghdad; many of them were Turks or Tartars, notably Ibn Tülün and El-Ikhshid, who both came from beyond the Oxus; but they were not the less the servants of the Khalifs. In the Fatimy Khalifs we see for the first time an heretical line of rulers invading the empire of the Khalifs, and owning no sort of allegiance to them. The Fatimy Khalifs had created a kingdom in Tunis upon the ruins of the Aghlaby power, and now they proceeded to add the dominions of the Ikhshidis to their realm. They transferred their seat of government from Tunis to Egypt (and thereby soon lost their western provinces), and founded a new suburb, or rather a vast palace, which was called El-Kahira, or Cairo. The design of the Fatimy general Gauhar was simply to build a palace for his master, the Khalif, where that sacred personage might be able to enjoy perfect seclusion ; and it was only in much later times, after the burning of Fustat, that El-Kahira became really a city. El-Kahira was, in fact, originally but a walled enclosure with double earthworks, about three quarters of a mile long and half a mile broad, containing the two royal palaces, one called the Great Palace (which was so extensive that on the fall of the Fatimy dynasty, in 1171, it was found to contain 12,000 women and eunuchs), the other, the Small Palace, overlooking the pleasure-grounds; and the two were connected under the open space which divided them (and which is still known as the street Beyn-el-Kasreyn, "Betwixt the Palaces "), by a subterranean passage. Close to the Eastern or Great Palace was the Imperial Mausoleum, in which El-Mu'izz deposited the bones of his ancestors, which he brought with him from their places of sepulture in the west. Further south was the mosque, also built by Gauhar, in which the Khalif, as Imam of his subjects, conducted the Friday prayers. The palaces received the name of El-Kusur ez-Zahira, "the Splendid Palaces," and the mosque that of El-Azhar, "the Most Splendid," which it still retains, and under which it has long been widely known as the great seat of Mohammadan learning, frequented by students from the most