Republican vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1857, 1857-07-18
From "Boat-lfe in Egypt
The Wane OF the Crescent.
BY W. c. PRIME.

the stones are worn viii, the knees of sin
cerc, if mistaken, believers; where ther
has never been day, since the ninth cen
tury when the voice Of the muezzin wa
not heard across the court and through TIN
shadowy arches, ',tterng that simple ant
sublime passage that has been so often ut
tered above this city and all the East tina
one might think the air would sound it witt
its own moaning winds forever after, Goo
is great There is no deity but Cod
Mahommed is Gods apostle. Come t
prayer, come to prayer; prayer is bette
than Sleep come to prayer. God is mos
great. There is no god but God
At monday and at sunsetting the sam,
chant has filled these arches with solemn
melody. One cannot 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
centuries. Age is sublime A creed,
though false, is nevertheless magnificent il
it be old and I cannot look on these totter-
ing walls, these upheaving pavements, these
crumbling towers, without melancholy re-
eret stealing in along with other feelings
that this worship. 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
Apis-shadows fitting around the ruins Of
old Egypt. In broad daylight, when eye
and ntellccts are wide awake, the shadows
are as clouds dark with memories of crime
and wrong shapes of hideous deeds, black
ening 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 Heliopolis and tie exchanging pyramids;
memories of simple but grand faith in the
hearts of old men that worshipped God, and
died in every year and month of all the
thousands that have shone upor these stones;
shadows that will forever haunt the places
that are sanctifed by mans hottest emotions
sincere and prayerful trustin God thotgll
it were in a false god, shadows that are
changeful, but always there; long shapes
and forms cast on the walls by the altar:
flames, that remain and appear and fit here
and there on pavement and wall, though
atarfrcs be long extinguished, and the
walls lie in dust on the broken pavements OF
the temple.
But is this SO, and is the end approach
ing? asked myself the question in the
city of Victory, seated at my open window
in the nighttime, the moon shining glori-
ous y-a dazzling moon--my table drawn
to the window, and the fame of my candle
rising steadily. and without flicker, in
the profoundly silent air. Two hundred
thousand people were lying around me,
and | asked who and what they were
and what part they formed in the grand sum
of human valuation? Literally nothing
They are not worth the counting among the
races of men. They are the curse of one of
the farest lands on this earth's suyfaee.
| had been conversing that same day
with intelligent Mussulmcn, who not only
expressed their belief, but added their anx-
ious hope that the advance of English pow
cr in the Fast would soon make Egypt an
English possession. | heard this every
where among them. II they knew any
thing about it--and Turks ought to know
more of it than Americans they would see
that it is their manifest destiny. England
begins to see it as before she has only wish
ed it,
answered my question, Yes, the end is
not far distant. The mosque of Amer, ira
ditional metre of the duration of the faith,
is falling, saw with my own eyes a huge
piece Of Ms wall 90 crashing down into
the dusty court, where the still sunshine fell
on it as if it had been waiting for it; and
no one will ever disturb its ruins.
Just before break of day, from the mos
que of Mohammod Ali at the citidel, the
morning call to prayer sounds over the city.
The Sultan Hassan, old Tooloon, and an
other and another take it up, and three
hundred voices are filling the air with a
rich soft chant, that reaches the car of the
Mussulman in his Profound st slumber, and
calls him mp to pray. Does he obey p
there was a time wlse@, at that can, She city
of Saah-e deem had no closed eye, no un-
bent knee in all its walls But the Mussul-
man is changed now. He heard the call in
his halfdrunken sleep, stupefed with hash-
ISL, and he damned the muezzin and turned
over to deeper slumber. He heard it in his
uiotouhu Iepose, aite" counting over the
gains he had made by cheating his neigh
bors, and he did not feel like praying lie
heard it in the perfumed couch of his slave,
and he forgot the prophets in the present
heaven He heard it-ycs, there were a
few old men who remember the glory of the
Mamelukes who heard their fierce shouts
when the Christian invaders met them at
the pyramids; and who, wearied with long
life, look now for youth and rest IN heaven
and they. when they heard the call, obeycd
it, and theirs were the only prayers wasted
on the dawning light in all of Cairo, and
when they cease there will be none to pray
This is no fancy picture. Mark the
prophecy. Our days mag &c few, but there
are men living now who will see the cres-
cent disappear from the valley Of the Nile,
and who will build their houses from the
sacred stones of the mightest mosques in
Grand Cairo. The beginning of this end
is visible already but who can foresee
what is to follow?
Valdcnses Comtaq to rirginia. 1T is
now stated on reliable authority, that Mr..
Lorraux has secured three thousand acres
of good land, to be occupied by his congre-
cation, about to come to this country-num-
bering some five hundred French Walden
ses-in Monongalia county, Va, within