We know that the ancient Egyptians worshipped animals; they showed a predilection for cats that has survived all the transformations effected by the centuries. In Cairo, there are still people who leave life annuities to their cats; and modern travelers have mentioned the existence of a hospital for these animals, near the Victory gate, intended to take in animals that are sick and without asylum.

Until recent years, the caravan leaving Cairo for Mecca had among its faithful followers an old woman who took with her cats that the Muslim devotees entrusted to her, with the certainty that they would be sanctified by this pilgrimage; this woman was called "the mother of the cats".

Today, it's an old man who fulfills this office. This strange custom may have originated from the memory of the embalmed cats that were transported to Bubastis - modern Zagazig - during pilgrimages to the Orient. They were given a place in the special hypogea [underground temple or tomb], in a cat necropolis of which there is no longer any trace.

It is not surprising that Mahomet intercedes in this weakened worship of cats since the Koran became the religious law in Egypt. Now, the Orientals say that the Prophet had a lot of regard for cats, especially for his own cat. It is said that this animal had once lain down on the floating sleeve of the Prophet's jacket, and seemed to meditate on it so deeply that the latter, eager to go to prayer and not daring to rouse it from its ecstasy, cut off the end of the sleeve. On his return, he found the cat waking from its slumber and, when it noticed the attention of its master, it got up to bow to him, arching its back.

Muhammad understood perfectly well that his cat was showing him gratitude, and he therefore promised to secure him a good place in his paradise. He did not stop at that resolution: passing his hand three times over the pussycat's back, he imprinted by his touch the special virtue of cats to always fall on their feet.

So here is our very busy cat father when the caravan leaves. The good people of Cairo, the devout Muslims, come to bring him their animals, and entrust them, with all kinds of recommendations, to his fatherly care. It is no small matter to go from Cairo to Mecca. There is a whole desert to cross to avoid the passage of the Red Sea; then you have to follow the coast of this sea under harsh conditions and with a lot of fatigue. So the father of the cats charges accordingly. Bargaining is always laborious to conclude. There are some who would pay only on his return, to be sure to see their favorite healthy, but the old man requires that he is shown their confidence by payment in advance.

At the time of departure, the father of the cats conveniently arranges his boarders in various baskets, bags and nets, placed on the back of the camel chosen to make the trip, or suspended from its vast flanks. There are cats of all sizes and colours: white with green eyes, limpid like seaweed, blacks, fawns, greys. One holds his head at a coquettish angle, another pricks up his ears and looks around, seeming to take seriously his role as a pilgrim devotee. One of them looks meek enough to reassure even mice, but another, on the contrary, has the appearance of a tiger, with its half-closed eyelids. Yet another darts evil looks as if it had just been rubbed the wrong way. It’s a nice collection of felines, and only the cat of mother Michel is missing [Note 1]. Happy creatures! After more than four thousand years, under this sky, the star of cats still shines and is not about to go out.

It is while the father of the cats is making his preparations that the carpets sent each year by the Egyptian government are solemnly transported from the citadel to the mosque of Sayedna-el-Hussein (our lord Hussein). The Khedive and its court attend this ceremony, on the Mehemet-Ali square, at the bottom of the citadel. Mosques and Muslim corporations are represented there by their ulama [guardians, transmitters and interpreters of religious knowledge], grouped around their flags.

There are two rugs. The one for Mecca is made up of eleven large pieces of black silk damask. They are transported to the mosque on stretchers. When assembled, these fabrics are large enough to cover the exterior of the Kaaba.

The carpet that must be placed on the tomb of the Prophet while passing in Medina is made up of several pieces of black silk on which verses from the Koran are embroidered in large golden letters, seventy centimeters high. It is in the mosque itself that the work of assembling these various pieces of fabric is done.

In addition to the carpets offered annually, each new Khedive, on the occasion of his accession, presents a magnificent red and gold embroidered tent called Mahmal which, when each caravan starts, is installed on one of the most beautiful camels, which is richly harnessed. It is the rallying sign of the pious pilgrims during the journey, and a solemn entry is reserved for him in all the cities that the caravan must cross.

At the same time, in Cairo, myriads of pilgrims from various parts of the East, and principally from all parts of Africa, have gathered. During the weeks preceding the departure it is a spectacle which aroused the curiosity of foreigners.

It is well known that every good Muslim must go to the holy places at least once in his life. This duty is made easier in our time, thanks to the railways and steamboats. Does this still have the same merit? Anyway, three large caravans are going to Mecca; the one that leaves from Cairo is the most important. Most of the Islamic nations are represented there: slender Kabyles from Algeria; Moors from Tunis wrapped in their white burnouse; Arabs with long beards, with accentuated features and sparkling black eyes, adorned with tarbousch, dressed in the shirt-shaped dress of the oriental peoples, barefoot, but not without distinction in the movements of a body that nothing hinders; Silent Copts, draped in their black robes; Tuaregs and Tedas, son of the desert par excellence, recognizable from afar by their measured gait as well as by their dark costume; prim Toubous who, before making a statement, spit a thin stream of green tobacco juice through their teeth to some distance: fellahs similar to the porphyry colossi in Egyptian galleries - the low forehead, the very large, long eyes, the thick eyebrows crowning the eyes, the thin beard sprouting from the end of the chin ... It is the Tartars who value their comfort most; they take with them the samovar, that Russian tea kettle, and even under the sun of Africa and Asia, in the middle of the desert sands, they cannot be parted from either their boots or their fur caps.

These people all wander dreamily or languidly, or remain crouched in endless contemplation and somehow without object, on the edge of the Nile, where the tents are erected. Sometimes these men quarrel in hasty words and with quick responses. The pure Arab and the Berber of the North look around at everything with a thoughtful pride drawn from their sense of relatively advanced civilization, but as for the Negroes, they laugh and chat without worry, making their two rows of white teeth shine in their dark faces. Varieties of skin colour, from the whiteness of Tartar to the ebony black hue of the Negroes, are all represented at this general meeting.

If a foreigner, a European, a Christian attracted by curiosity, circulates among these pilgrims, he is immediately assaulted by children who assail him with their cries of baksheesh baksheesh! It is not uncommon for the traveller to be forced to hurriedly make a payment to one of these turbaned urchins who asks him for alms in their poorly moderated terms “Baksheesh, swine! baksheesh, dog! baksheesh, unfidel!” He who understands raises his cane, but many do not understand and, believing they are being addressed in flattering terms, salute and double the alms ...

Then comes the moment of departure; usually at the end of September. The caravan sets off in the midst of a huge crowd rushing into the plain of Abbassieh, north of Cairo. Its departure is greeted with twenty-one cannon shots. The caravan takes the carefully folded carpets, a sum of four hundred thousand to five hundred thousand francs, food supplies and a quantity of pelisses and white stuffs to provide for the needs of the journey, to make the usual presents to the Bedouins and to rescue the poor of the two holy cities, - Medine and Mecca.

One can estimate there are a hundred donkeys, which travel at the front to regulate the march, five hundred camels and half that number of horses making up the caravan. All these creatures serve as mounts or are loaded with goods and provisions. A thousand Egyptian soldiers and government employees are assigned to guard the treasury and serve the Mahmal. Their leader is a pasha, and the troops include two squadrons of cavalry, and two mountain guns to defend the caravan against the undertakings of the desert Bedouins. In addition, a hundred poor people follow on foot, determined to make the holy pilgrimage in that condition.

The splendid Mahmal attracts everyone's attention.

What becomes of the father of the cats in the midst of this crowd and all this display of luxury and strength? Hey! He holds a place, a good place. The old man had the art of surrounding himself with some of the Negroes from Sudan, very poor, who do not beg, and who for a small fee render a multitude of small services. Thanks to their help, he managed to keep his congregation of pilgrims with all their fur and claws, of which he was the chief - and the father.

The caravan heads towards Cairo, that large city with its strange appearance, with its domes, its terraced houses, its palm trees and its three hundred minarets standing out so vigorously against the blue of the sky, very The desert encloses the city on three sides, but in the west, thanks to the Nile, the contrast is striking: splendid vegetation, palm woods dotted with green fields, elegant villas, beautiful avenues of sycamores. In the direction of Suez, the desert unfolds with its fiery hillocks, its burning sands, its boundless horizons, all bathed in dazzling light.

The caravan fills these solitudes with animation and noise. The heavily loaded camels walk with heavy steps; dromedaries trot lightly, washers indulge in fantasies. The caravan is not only made up of pilgrim devotees. There are Moroccans who carry beautiful skins of red and yellow goats from the shops of the main street of Messaï to Mecca; Tunisians who have a supply of fez; European Turks equipped with trinkets of embroidered fabrics, to which they do not disdain to add dry jams and pieces of amber pipes; the Anatolian Turks cart silk rugs and Angora shawls, intended to take their place next to the cashmere and silk handkerchiefs brought by the Persians from a caravan that follows another route, next to the beautifully embroidered shawls in which the Afghans excel, the magnificent weapons and fabrics of India, and leather goods of the Arabs from Yemen. There are the negroes of Sudan, of Timbuktu who are going towards Mecca, as if towards an assured market with their woven baskets (rush and cloth}, with their cotton fabrics ...

There are curious features: some Moroccan acrobats, most of them very young boys, have also joined the pilgrims after following the African Mediterranean coastline, for love of profit as much as for devotion and aimlessness.

Altogether this forms a rather variegated multitude. The caravan heads towards the extremity of the Gulf of Akaba, leaving on its right almost the whole peninsula dominated by Mount Sinal, and on its left Palestine, the Dead Sea and Jerusalem.

Coming out of Suez, we entered the Egarement valley where the Jewish people wandered for so long. It is a very extensive sandy plain, cut by small elevations of quicksand and a series of mounds. At intervals, masonry columns of three to four metres in height, mark out the road. At the end of the valley is Fort Nikihil, guarded by around thirty Turkish soldiers, and where the Egyptian government sends in advance food to resupply the caravan and two oxen to turn the waterwheel which must provide water to the thirsty pilgrims.

Before reaching the Red Sea, it must cross the famous single-file passage of Akaba, an arduous route. Here, it is often necessary to abandon stony and steep slopes. After that, the caravan will closely follow the shore of the sea for up to three days from Mecca.

But look at the father of the cats, encumbered with his singular cargo of felines, struggling with the difficulties of the pious voyage? All the time he quarrels with his camel driver, who is occupied for the rest of the year at the stone quarries of Cairo, and intends to make a profit good enough to allow him to buy new camels, which he will rent similarly during the pilgrimage next year.

Have a good trip!

Note 1: Mother Michel’s Cat (a popular French children’s song)

It’s old ma Michel who lost her cat,
Who's yelling out the window, who will bring it back?
It's old pa Lustucru who answered her:
"Come on, old ma Michel, your cat is not lost."

To the tune of tra la la la,
To the tune of tra la la la,
To the tune of tra-day-ree day-ra tra la la.

It's old ma Michel who asked him:
"My cat's not lost, you found it then?"
It's Old pa Lustucru who answered her:
"Give a finder's reward, it'll be returned to you."

Then old ma Michel told him: "It's settled
If you give my cat back, you'll get a kiss."
But old man Lustucru who didn't want one
Said to her: "Your cat will be sold as a rabbit!"

(C'est la mère Michel qui a perdu son chat,
Qui crie par la fenêtre à qui le lui rendra.
C'est le père Lustucru qui lui a répondu:
“Allez, la mère Michel, votre chat n'est pas perdu!”

Refrain: Sur l'air du tra la la la (bis),
Sur l'air du tra déri déra,
Et tra la la!

C'est la mère Michel qui lui a demandé:
“Mon chat n'est pas perdu? Vous l'avez donc trouvé?”
Et le père Lustucru qui lui a répondu:
“Donnez une récompense, il vous sera rendu.”

Et la mère Michel lui dit: “C'est décidé,
Si vous rendez mon chat, vous aurez un baiser.”
Mais le père Lustucru, qui n'en a pas voulu,
Lui dit: “Pour un lapin, votre chat est vendu!”)