Identifier: upnilehomeagainh00fair (find matches)
Title: Up the Nile, and home again. A handbook for travellers and a travel-book for the library.
Year: 1862 (1860s)
Authors: Fairholt, F. W. (Frederick William), 1814-1866
Subjects:
Publisher: London, Chapman and Hall
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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j on the north, it forms a high hill, completelyoverlooking and commanding the town. In theearly part of the seventh century it was besiegedby the conqueror of Egypt, the Arab Ameer, whowas before it for seven months, and after its fallfounded Fostat and New Cairo. The mosque atFostat, just outside the Roman wall, which bearshis name, is an early work, but not of his era :it presents some curious examples of early pointedarches. Fostat may be described as a line ofstreets and garden-houses between the old fortressand the river. At the end of the Island ofRhoda, is the ferry to Ghizeh, and the ancientKilometer, used for so many centuries to perform CAIRO AND THE PYRAMIDS. 61 tlie important office of ascertaining the daily rise ofthe river during the inundation. The Nilometer may be described as an open,square, well-like chamber of stone, which, at onetime, was covered by a dome. It has a Cuficinscription round the upper part, and archedrecesses below. The researches of Wilkinson failed
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to discover a date on any part; the ^inscription^he says, is not without its interest for architecturalinquiry, though devoid of a date, since the styleof the Cufic is evidently of an early period, corre-sponding to that used at the time of its reputederection—the middle cf the ninth century—andas the arches are all pointed, we have here another 62 UP THE NILE. proof of the early use of that form of arch inSaracenic buildings. In the centre is a pillardivided into cubits and digits, a staircase on oneside leading to the water which covers a depositof about six feet of mud. When David Robertsvisited this place, but a few years since, he wasobliged to watch an opportunity, leap the low wall,and hurriedly complete his sketch of the interior, at the risk of being drowned in the well of theNilometer, or shot by the sentinel, says the writerof the descriptive letter-press accompanying theviews made for his great work on Egypt and theHoly Land. At that time the large building besideit wa

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