The exhibition of Egyptian antiquities in the Cairo Museum is the most extensive and complete collection in existence, affording historic data of priceless value to the antiquarian. Here we have tangible history taking us back four thousand five hundred years before the coming of Christ, representing not only the art and culture, but also the religion of those remote periods, even to the days of Menes, the first recorded king. A wooden statue over four thousand years old, recovered from Memphis, launches one's imagination upon a busy train of thought. Here were curious tables, papyrus, bronze images, mummies, sculptures from stone, objects relating to domestic life, arms, rings, combs, vases, and many other articles which were in use four thousand years ago. By the Boulak Museum it is easily proved that the glory of Egyptian art belonged to the age of Cheops, its decadence to that of Rameses II. The collection, as we have intimated, throws a light upon Egyptian life and history for nearly five thousand years before the Christian era, but it is only a dim light. There can be but little consecutive reading of these isolated mementos. They afford us information as to generalities only, yet add link after link to a chain connecting those long past centuries with the present time.
The Mosque of Amer, some twelve centuries in age, though little more than a ruin, is still of considerable interest to the traveler. One enters the walls of an oblong court, the east end being formed of a gallery with columns inclosing the sanctuary. The north and south sides are inclosed by piazzas with many noble columns. There are two hundred and fifty of these, formed of single stones of granite and porphyry, which are known to have come from Memphis and Heliopolis. The whole deserted temple constitutes the most important monument of Arabian architecture in Cairo. Seen as it was in the dull gray of early morning, before the sun had fairly lighted the well-preserved minarets, it presented a solemn picture of faded glory. It is quite as much in their suggestiveness as in what they exhibit to the eye, that these decaying monuments interest and instruct us. The mosque was erected by the general whose name it bears, and was one of the few that escaped, five centuries later, the fire by which the Saracens burned Cairo to prevent its falling into the hands of the invading Christians.