Wf1/4624(5)

Genre: Urban Topographical Photography

Street scene, showing Egyptian domestic architecture. 'In the north-west corner of the city is a large irregular tract, called the 'El-Ezbekeeyah,' of 'Birket El-Ezbekeeyah,' named after the Emeer El-Ezbekee. It is nearly half a mile long, and about a third of a mile broad at its widest extent. The scene here represented is well-known to European travellers, being a portion of a row of lofty houses bounding it on the north-east, and forming part of the south-western side of the great Coptic Quarter, which covers a considerable space behind. On the extreme left is the entrance of a little quarter, called the 'Radwaneeyah,' and beyond it was the Bab-el-Hadeed, built by Salah-ed-Deen (Saladin), a gate taken down some years since, the neighbourhood of the site of which is now the scene of the noise and bustle of a railway terminus ... The plague in Cairo, when that scourge visits the city, is said to make its appearance generally in the houses facing the Ezbekeeyah on the north-east. Those in the view are the most northern of these ...'