THE MOSQUES OF CAIRO They are almost innumerable, more than 3000, and this great town, which covers some twelve miles of plain, might well be called a city of mosques.

(I speak, of course, of the ancient Cairo, of the Cairo of the Arabs.

The new Cairo, the Cairo of sham elegance and of "Semiramis Hotels," does not deserve to be mentioned except with a smile.) A city of mosques, then, as I was saying.

They follow one another along the streets, sometimes two, three, four in a row; leaning one against the other, so that their confines become merged.

On all sides their minarets shoot up into the air, those minarets embellished with arabesques, carved and complicated with the most changing fancy.