ONE OF THE TOMBS OF THE CALIPHS, CAIRO

THIS, though so generally named by our artist, is a portion of the well-known collegiate mosque of the Sultan Barkook. The open loggia with the arches springing from the slender columns is used as the school, and the porch presents a beautiful example of the stalactitic decoration of the Arab architects. The general appearance of these beautiful structures, so rapidly falling to decay, saddens the observer. They have been raised by the proud desire to leave a name, but without lineal descendants to cherish that name and preserve the mosques from decay, their ruin is certain, and it is, perhaps, even desired by the members of another family who may succeed to power, that the name of the founder should perish: and the sovereigns of Egypt have no nationality of feeling to preserve them. To this, and to the power to destroy wherever there is the will, we may attribute the unheeded ruin of these remarkable buildings.

This mosque was built between the years 1382 and 1398 of our era; but is not the sepulchral mosque of the Sultan Barkook: the ruins of that tomb-mosque are found without the walls, among the tombs of the Sultans.