Spirit of the age. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1849-1865, 1857-07-22
From "Boat-life in Egypt"
The Wane of the Crescent.
BY w. G. pR1mn

BY &C. PRIME
1t is profoundly interesting to stand in
spot where, daily, for thousand wears, the
prayers Of men have been offered up : where
the stones are worn with the knees of sincere
II mistaken believers where there has never
Deen day, since the ninth century, when
the voice OF the muezzin was not heard across
the court and through the shadowy arches
utterlng that simple and sublime passage
that has been so often uttered above this city,
and all the East that one might. think the
air would sound 1t with It's own morning
winds forever after: God is great. There
is no deity but God. Mohammed is Gods
apostle Come to prayer, come to prayer
prayer IS better than sleep; come to prayer.
God is most great. There is no God but God. ,
AT monday and at sunsetting the same
chant has filled these arches with solemn
melody. One can not stand and hear it now
without feeling that the voice is the same
voice that uttered it ten centuries ago, though
the men through whose thin lips it escaped
on the air are the dead dust of those centu-
ries. Age is sublime. A creed, though
false, is nevertheless magnificent if it be old !;
and | cannot look on these tottering walls,
/ these upheaving pavements, these crumbling
towers, without melancholy regret stealing
In along with other feelings, that this wor
ship, this creed, is approaching its end, and
that the day is fast coming when Islam and
the creed Of the Prophet will be to men like
the memories of Isis and Aris-shadows fit
ting around the ruins of old Egypt In broad
daylight, when eyes and intellects are wide
awake, the shadows are as clouds dark with
memories of crime and wrong; shapes of
hldeous deeds, blackening the very name of
humanity.
But In night time and the moonlight. when
we do not see these, there will be shapes like
halos around the fallen minarets of Tooloon
and Amer as around the obelisk of Heliopo-
lis and the unchanging pyramids; memories
OF simple but grand faith in the hearts of old
men that worshiped God, and died in every
year and month of all the thousands that
have shone upon these stones shadows that
Will forever haunt the places that are sancr
titled by mans holiest emotions-sincere and
prayerful trust in God, though it we're in a
false god shadows that are changeful, but
always there long shapes and forms cast on
the walls by the alter-hamess that remain and
appear, and fit here and there on pavement
and wall, though alter-fres be long extin-
guished, and the wall lie in dust on the bro
ken pavements of the temple.
But is this so, and is the end approaching?
asked myself the question in the city of
| Victory, seated at my open window in the
night time, the moon shining gloriously-a
dazzling moon-uny table drawn to the win
dow, and the fame Of my candle rising stead
were living around me, and I asked who and
what they were, and what part they formed
in the grand sum of human valuation? Lit
orally nothing. They are not worth the
counting among the races ofmen. They are
the curse Of one of the fairest lands on this
earth's surface.
I had been conversing that same day with
intelligent Mussulmans, who not only ex-
pressed their belief, but added their anxious
hope, that the advance of English power in
the East would soon make Egypt an English
possession. l heard this everywhere among
them.
If they knew any thing about it-and Turks
ought to know more of it than Americans
they would see that it is their manifest des
tiny. England begins to cit, as before she
has only wished it.
l answered my question, Yes, the end is
not far distant The mosk of Amer, tradi
tional metre of the duration Of the faith, is
falling. saw with my own eyes huge
tpiece Of its wall go crashing down into the
dusty court, when the still sunshine fell on il
as if it had been waiting for it and no one
will ever disturb its ruin.
just before the break Of day, from the mosl
of Mohammed Ali at the citadel, the morning
call to prayer sounds over the city. The
Sultan Hassan, old Tooloon, and another anC
another take it up, and three hundred voices
are filling the air with rich, soft chant, tha
reaches the ear of the Mussulman in his pro
foundest slumber, and calls him up to pray
Does he obey? There was time when, a
that call, the city of Salah.e'-deen had M
closed eye, no unbent knee IN all Its walls
But the Mussulman is changed now. Ht
heard the call in his half drunken sleep, stu
pefed with hdshish, and he damned the mu
ezzin, and turned over to deeper slumber.-
He heard itin his profound repose, after conn
ting over the gains he had made by cheating
his neighbors, and ne did not feel like pray
ing. He heard it in the perfumed couch Q
his slave, and he forgot the prophets in thu
present heaven. He heard it-yes, ther
were few old men who remember the glor,
of the Mamelukes who heard their ferc
shouts when the Christian invaders met then
at the pyramids and who, wearied wit
long life, look now for youth and rest in hea
ven, and they, when they heard the call
obeyed it, and theirs were the only PRAYER
wasted on the dawning light lin in q he :, none '
and when they cease th~1o VIII pe Hone -
pray' This is - fancy picture. Mark tn
nronhecv our days may be few, but ther
are Iaen living now who will see the crescer
disappear from the valley of the Nile, an
who will build their houses from the sacre
stones ofthe mig htiest mosks in Grand Carr
The beginning of this end is visible alread.
but who can foresee what is to follow?
LAST OF THE TRAGEDY.-The folloN
ing melancholy details are the sad closlI
of the Nicaragua tragedy:
1t is estimated that during two years,