Soon after arriving in Cairo the party went to the Franciscan monastery where they stayed for the next eight days. Šašel did his best to describe Cairo in his journal, referring to it as the “Paris of the East”, with the beautiful Ezbekieh Square, the island where Moses was supposed to have been found by pharaoh’s wife, and the pyramids of Giza.

Šašel was fascinated with everything he saw in Cairo: the various mosques, the promenades lined with acacia and palm trees, Old Cairo, the so-called "Mary cave, the old sycamore tree at the place where the old tree stood until 1656, and the famous Citadel. He also described the modern Egyptian customs, houses, and the harems he saw. On the 29th September Schaschel witnessed the slave trade in the Cairo streets, which happened every Friday, and he was “touched to tears” by what he saw. One day he visited all three of the great pyramids in Giza where he climbed to the top of one, and went inside that built for Khufu. In his journal, he cites the ancient writer Herodotus and his description of how the greatest pyramid was built in twenty years.

This illustration shows the veduta of Cairo. On this illustration we can see one of the many city mosques, the group of Egyptians, city houses alongside the Nile, and in background three great pyramids of Giza.

Jakov Šašel probably painted this illustration during his stay in Cairo (between 25th September and 3rd October 1853).

In the late summer of 1853 Jakov Šašel went on his first journey to Austria to visit various gunsmiths. There he probably learned that Ignatio Knoblecher, from the Catholic missionary in Khartoum, was looking for various craftsmen for his mission in Sudan. Jakob decided to join the large group of missionaries and craftsmen, and in August 1853 he left his home for an almost year long journey to Egypt, Nubia and Sudan. He returned from Sudan in the summer of 1854.

Jakov Šašel described his journey to Egypt, Nubia and Africa in a manuscript journal, titled Bilder aus dem Oriente aufgenommen während einer Reise nach Aegypten, Nubien, Sudan in Jahren 1853 und 1854 (Pictures from the Orient taken during a journey to Egypt, Nubia and Sudan in 1853 and 1854), which he completed in 1863. His manuscript, bound in leather, and with the title in gold letters, is today in the collections of Karlovac Town Museum where it has the inventory number KP-460. The manuscript consists of a foreword and 143 pages of text that is divided into four main chapters. The chapters are illustrated with the 33 colourful drawings Šašel made during his journey.

Šašel’s travel journal is one of the most detailed and interesting diaries describing Egypt, Nubia and the Sudan that has survive from the middle of the 19th century. During 1884 the manuscript journal was published in sections within the journal “Svjetlo”. To mark the 140th anniversary of Jakob Šašel’s journey to Africa, in 2003 the Karlovac Town Museum published the manuscript of his travel diary in a bilingual German and Croatian edition.