Without a guide it is almost impossible to find your way thither.

The quarter in which it is situated is enclosed within the walls of what was once a Roman fortress, and this fortress in its turn is surrounded by the tranquil ruins of "Old Cairo"-- which is to the Cairo of the Mamelukes and the Khedives, in a small degree, what Versailles is to Paris.
On this Easter morning, having set out from the Cairo of to-day to be present at this mass, we have first to traverse a suburb in course of transformation, upon whose ancient soil will shortly appear numbers of these modern horrors, in mud and metal--factories or large hotels--which multiply in this poor land with a stupefying rapidity.

Then comes a mile or so of uncultivated ground, mixed with stretches of sand, and already a little desertlike.

And then the walls of Old Cairo; after which begins the peace of the deserted houses, of little gardens and orchards among the ruins.

The wind and the dust beset us the whole way, the almost eternal wind and the eternal dust of this land, by which, since the beginning of the ages, so many human eyes have been burnt beyond recovery.