The mystery remained unexplained, though we fear that most sober Franks (in spite of the corroboration afforded to the doorkeeper's theory by the high authority of the _Thousand and One Nights_[18]) will be tempted to share Mrs Poole's scepticism as to the remains of a devil assuming the shape of the calcined sole of an old shoe: but after an interval of peace, they were eventually compelled, by a renewal of the attack, to abandon the haunted house--and those who succeeded them fared even worse. Six families were driven out in as many weeks--their windows broken, and their china demolished by invisible hands, not only by night, but in broad day--"and now," says Mrs Poole, "I have done with this subject. I have said much upon it; but I must be held excusable, as ''tis passing strange.'"
The annoyance of this spectral warfare, which continued many months, had not prevented Mrs Poole (in spite of the _desagrémens_ of flies, "black thick-legged spiders," and handmaidens, "who scarcely ever wash themselves except when they go to the bath, which is once in about ten days or a fortnight") from becoming gradually at home in her Egyptian residence, and tolerably familiarized with the language and manners of the country. She had even adopted the native manner of eating; and had habituated herself to wear the Turkish dress with such ease, as to witness unsuspected the splendid procession of the _Mahmal_,[19] or emblem of royalty, which precedes the march of the pilgrim caravan to Mekka--an occasion on which the boys of Cairo enjoy a kind of saturnalia, and are privileged to maltreat any Christian or Jew who may be detected near the route. Under the guidance of an elderly Muslim friend of her brother, she had also entered the principal mosques of Cairo, including that of the Hasaneyn (the grandsons of the prophet, Hasan and Hoseyn) and the Zamé-el-Azhar, the two most sacred edifices of Cairo. But the Azhar (splendid mosque) is not only the _cathedral_ mosque of the Egyptian capital, but the principal, and perhaps in the present day the only Moslem university. In the _riwaks_, or apartments appropriated to students from different countries, chiefly poor scholars supported by the funds of the mosque, "after passing successively among natives of different divisions of Egypt, we find ourselves in the company of people of Mekkeh and El-Medeeneh; then in the midst of Syrians; in another minute among Muslims of Central Africa; next among Magharbeh, (or natives of Northern Africa west of Egypt;) then with European and Asiatic Turks; and quitting these, we are introduced to Persians, and Muslims of India; we may almost fancy ourselves transported through their respective countries. No sight in Cairo interested me more than the interior of the Azhar; and the many and great obstacles which present themselves when a Christian, and more especially a Christian lady, desires to obtain admission into this celebrated mosque, make me proud of having enjoyed the privilege of walking leisurely through its extensive porticoes, and observing its heterogeneous students engaged in listening to the lectures of their professors."