Aotea
17/6/17
Dear People
I have been thinking it will be much better for me to stay in today & get a few letters off instead of going out in the heat, the last two days have been something awful no need to be moving about to be in a constant state of perspiration & at night it is impossible to sleep for anything but a few hours at a time, what with chasing mosquitoes etc. Although having been here a fortnight & two days this is only the third afternoon I have stayed at home so you can imagine I have seen something of the city & it’s attractions if one
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may call them such. Although having been in Cairo a good deal I have not yet got the hang of the place streets in every & any direction some parts of the city are very fine others again are beyond the pail, you can hardly call them streets in these place merely opening & all day long & I believe the greater part of the night there is a constant stream a natives passing one way & the other one does not need to pass these places more than once to have enough of the vile smells that will be associated with every thought of Cairo for years afterwards. For every part of the buildings are large & solid but though the architecture may be good the masonry is poor &
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what appear to be fine buildings on a closer inspection one finds in many cases that they are slowly crumbling away. In fact they would not stand the climate of any other part of the world, here where it never rains or freezes neither do they have any earth quake otherwise in would be a sorry day for the greater part of their fine architecture. Quite the finest piece of work I have seen is in the Mosque at the Citadel this is supposed to be the second largest & finest Mosque in the world being second only to the Mosque in Constantinople. In the temple itself there are two thousand lights outside there are five hundred. from the floor to the dome is one hundred
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& fifty feet, here there is four main pillars supporting the dome each cut out of solid marble, about fifteen feet square & anywhere from forty to sixty feet high. The walls are everywhere carved in figures emblematic of their gods, from roof to floor they are carved, painted, contain ivory & golden figures inlaid in fact work that cannot be described by me at any rate. It is said that the architect for this building had his eyes gouged out when the work was completed so that he would never be able too produce such another. Altogether there are four hundred Mosques round hereabouts but if one sees one he see the lot as they are all the same but different. (get me). From the Citadel
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is obtaind the finest view of Cairo & from here one gets some idea of its size ever so much more so than getting around it by trams gharre’s etc, I must admit I never for a moment thought it was the size it is until I saw it from here. Another fine trip a party of us from here went on was to old Cairo through the Potteries & Coptic Churches. In the Potteries the rapidity with which the skilful workmen turn out flower pots & other fancy earthenware is marvelous & after each article has been shaped & dried it is worth a half penny, I think in the five minutes I was watching the work going on three different articles were turned out, but
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of course had to be dried afterwards. The Coptic Churches also proved interesting in a sort of cellar carved out of stone & underneath the floor is the place where were they tell us Mary Joseph & the infant Moses where hidden & where all the children were taken for babtism. Still in another Mosque we find a couple of marble pillars brought from Mecca a rather remarkable story in connection with them runs something after this style. Some high priest or what ever he was called in said to mave smeared both pillars at a particular spot with lemon juice & told the people that if they licked them they would be cured of all disease,
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you may think it far fetched but they had licked holes in the marble to a depth of nearly two inches. Another day I was at the Zoological Gardens a very fine place too, accross the Nile from here came back on the river by boat. From the boat I got some idea of the size of the river much larger that it appears from the banks or crossing the bridge. Still another day three of us went out took a Gharre went through Zeitoun out to the Obelisk the Holy Tree Virgin Well & the little church alongside a very pretty drive & an interesting outing. Yesterday we sallied forth & found our way to the Museum, by the way we had
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been twice before & found it closed, here they have all the ancient mummies statues etc of the Egyptian kings & people dating back to fifteen hundred years B.C. & of course here one feels the want of a good grasp of the Bible & ancient history. Everywhere one comes accross the wonderful carvings & statues done in solid marble or granite & marvels at the work done by the people of the olden times with the tools at their disposal some of these we saw at the Museum & they are very delicate compared with the solid work they executed. Of course each place visited meant an afternoon or the best part thereof & strolling round put a keen edge on the appetite
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so of course afternoon tea was a part of the outing most of the places being very decent, but our favourite place is Groppi’s the flash place in Cairo. Now I think as far as sight-seeing goes I have said openly of course I could fill pages but it would be all of the same sort of stuff that is drawback here & as I said before it requires a good knowledge of history, if one starts diving into things here he needs a long time & a lot of money before having made a perfect investigation. I am sending a bundle of P.C.s they will give you a good idea of some of the work & are places that I have seen. Of what has been going on up
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at the front we hear nothing here but I believe it has been quiet for some time may be when we get moving again we will not stop till we reach Jerusalem. I am looking forward to being back to Moascar in a day or two. I said looking forward to it but believe me I do not relish the idea of the time I will spen there after being here, only wish I could get right out to Brigade. I have not had any mail for about a week or more expect some any day as usual I suppose it will get here the night after I go away. I sent the parcel I mentioned when last I wrote & another to Eileen yesterday
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for you three young people so hope they arrive all safe. I don’t think there is much more that I can write about except to say that I have just about seen enough of Cairo it is a place that one would quickly tire of at least I would in fact the longer in Egypt the more one dislikes the whole place. Now I must stop. Believe me to be well again & getting fit although feeling it warm. Hoping this finds all in the best of health.
Affect. Your Brother
Charlie
P.S. No need to say who the P.C.s are. I had these taken about a week ago. The other two in the group are Brown on left & Peterson on left. Ch.
