TOMBS OF THE MEMLOOKS, CAIRO, WITH AN ARAB FUNERAL

THIS group of buildings offers a striking difference to the other views given of those remarkable structures,- the generally nameless mosque-tombs of the Memlooks; the variety in the three minarets, all beautiful, but unlike each other, and the domes, so singular yet elegant in form, justify the endless praises which all travellers, and artists particularly, have bestowed upon this extraordinary class of buildings.

All that part of the Desert in the immediate vicinity of Cairo is used by its inhabitants as a burial-place. Whilst our Artist was sketching, the event occurred which he has represented ,- the funeral of an Arabic girl. The coffin, covered with a rich shawl, was borne on the head of a stout Arab; above the head was a prop to which the shawl was fastened and thence fell in folds on the coffin. The body was followed by hired mourners,- women who gave extravagant utterance to lamentations unfelt, at least by them, and waving handkerchiefs over their heads, or, when well paid for it, parts of their garments torn off in their violent affectations of grief; and some throwing dust upon their heads, that custom of the East so remotely recorded, and still preserved in Egypt. The group following are of the near relatives of the deceased. The sad procession is led by several blind men, who chaunt and recite verses from the Koran; and immediately before the coffin a group of boys are stationed, to be ready to strew flowers on the grave when the body had been deposited in this necropolis of Cairo. 

Robert's Journal