surprising.

Before the mosques, which are raised like altars, there is always a
flight of steps with a balustrade of white marble. From the door one
gets a glimpse of the calm interior in deep shadow. Once inside there
are corridors, astonishingly lofty, sonorous and enveloped in a kind of
half gloom; immediately on entering one experiences a sense of coolness
and pervading peace; they prepare you as it were, and you begin to be
filled with a spirit of devotion, and instinctively to speak low. In
the narrow street outside there was the clamorous uproar of an Oriental
crowd, cries of sellers, and the noise of humble old-world trading; men
and beasts jostled you; there seemed a scarcity of air beneath those so
numerous overhanging mushrabiyas. But here suddenly there is silence,
broken only by the vague murmur of prayers and the sweet songs of birds;
there is silence too, and the sense of open space, in the holy garden
enclosed within high walls; and again in the sanctuary, resplendent in
its quiet and restful magnificence. Few people as a rule frequent the
mosques, except of course at the hours of the five services of the day.
In a few chosen corners, particularly cool and shady, some greybeards
isolate themselves to read from morning till night the holy books and to
ponder the thought of approaching death: they may be seen there in their
white turbans, with their white beards and grave faces. And there may
be, too, some few poor homeless outcasts, who are come to seek the
hospitality of Allah, and sleep, careless of the morrow, stretched to
their full length on mats.

The peculiar charm of the gardens of the mosques, which are often very
extensive, is that they are so jealously enclosed within their high
walls--crowned always with stone trefoils--which completely shut out the
hubbub of the outer world. Palm-trees, which have grown there for some