The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-09-08

loopyrlghti l90i, by Frank G. Cafpenief1
 Cairo. ~ TAND with me on the Hill of the
 Citadel and take look over Cairo. R$ We are high above the River Nib and far above the minarets of mosques which rise out of the vast plain of houses below We are as high up as the taps of the Pyramids, which stand out upon the yellow desert away off to the left. The sun is blazing. and there is a smoky haze over the Nile valley, built is not dense enough to hide Cairo. The city, which lies right under us. is the largest on this conti- nent and one of the mightiest of the world. It now contains million inhab- itants; and, in size, il is fast approximat- ing Heliopolis and Memphis in the height of their glory.
 Of all the Mohammedan cities of the world, Cairo is now growing the fastest. It already has only 100000 less people than Constantinope. 1t is four times as big as Damascus, eight times as big as Bagdad and fifteen or twenty times the size of either Mecca or Medina, where the Prophet Mohammed born and died. It has more than doubled it's popd- lation since I last visited fl, and with my glass ] can now see the seaffolding about the new buildings which are rising here and there over the plains The town
 
 section farms. and it's buildings are so crowded together that they form an al most continuous structure. The only trees to be seen are those in the new French quarter, which lies on the outskirts.
 Mohammedan Cairo.
 The most of the city is of Arabian architecture It is flat roofed, and Is made I'D of yellowish- white buildings so crowded along narrow streets that they can hardly be seen at this distance Here and there, out of the field of white, rise tall round stone towers with galleries running about them. They dominate the whole city, and under each is mosque. Those mosques are the Mohammedan churches There are hundreds of them in Cairo, and not a few have been re- gently erected Every one has its Wor- shipers and upon every tower, five times a day, the shrll-voved Arabian priest calls out for the people to come to pray CTS There is a man now calling from the niraret of the Mosque of Sultan Ha- san which is just under us. The mosque itself covers more than two acres, and the mnaret Is about half as high as the Washington monument. The priest is standing on a gallery, with seaffolding above and below him. His mosque is being repaired, and 100000 will be spent upon t when the present plans are com- pleted Just next it is another mosque, recently begun. and all about us we can see evidences that Mohammedanism is by no means dead. and that these people worship God with their pockets as well as with their tongues.
 In the Alabaster mosque, which stands at my back fifty men are now praying and in the courtyard q score of others are washing themselves before they go in to make their vows of re- pentance to God and the Prophet. Not far below me l can see the mosque el- Azhar, which has been q Mohammedan university for more than thousand years, and where something like 9000 students are now learning the Koran and Koranci law.
 During my stay in Tunis the Moham- medans were celebrating their Lent or Ramadan, and not a one of the vast population of Tunisia who believe in the Prophet woul dtalSe q bite to eat from sunrise to sunset, and the more deyout would not even swallow their spittle. Here at Cairo l have seen the people preparing to take tn cir pill grimage to Mecca. rich and poor start ing out on that long journey into the Arabian desert. At present many go part of the way by water. The ships leaving Alexandria and Suez are crowded with pilgrims. and there is a regular exodus from Port Sudan and other places on this side of the Red sea- They go across to Jeddah and there lay off their costly clothing and make their way inland. clad only in aprons and d piece of cloth over the left shoulder. This is so of the rich and the poor. Many of the former ear ry gifts and other offerings for the