by Grant Allen
The Place Mehemet Ali, usually called for the sake of brevity the Grand Square, is close at hand. This is the center of the European quarter, and round it are collected the banks, consular offices, and principal shops. This square, the focus of the life of modern Alexandria, is appropriately named after the founder of the present dynasty, and the creator of the Egypt of to-day. To this great ruler, who at one time bid fair to become the founder, not only of an independent kingdom, but of a great Oriental Empire, Alexandria owes much of its prosperity and commercial importance. The career of Mehemet Ali is interesting and romantic. There is a certain similarity between his history and that of Napoleon I., and the coincidence seems heightened when we remember that they were born in the same year. Each, rising from an obscure position, started as an adventurer on foreign soil, and each rose to political eminence by force of arms. Unlike Napoleon, however, in one important point, Mehemet Ali founded a dynasty which still remains in power, in spite of the weakness and incapacity of his successors. To Western minds, perhaps, his great claim to hold a high rank in the world’s history lies in his efforts to introduce European institutions and methods of civilization, and to establish a system of government opposed to Mohammedan instincts. He created an army and navy which were partly based on European models, stimulated agriculture and trade, and organized an administrative and fiscal system which did much towards putting the country on a sound financial footing. The great blot of his reign was no doubt the horrible massacre of the Mameluke Beys, and this has been the great point of attack by his enemies and detractors. It is difficult to excuse this oriental example of a coup d’état, but it must be remembered that the existence of this rebellious element was incompatible with the maintenance of his rule, and that the peace of the country was as much endangered by the Mameluke Beys as was that of the Porte by the Janissaries a few years later, when a somewhat similar atrocity was perpetrated.
In the middle of the square stands a handsome equestrian statue of Mehemet Ali which is, in one respect, probably unique. The Mohammedan religion demands the strictest interpretation of the injunction in the decalogue against making “to thyself any craven image,” and consequently a statue to a follower of the creed of Mahomet is rarely seen in a Mohammedan country. The erection of this particular monument was much resented by the more orthodox of the Mussulman population of Alexandria, and the religious feelings of the mob manifested themselves in riots and other hostile demonstrations. Not only representations in stone or metal, but any kind of likeness of the human form is thought impious by Mohammedans. They believe that the author will be compelled on the Resurrection Day to indue with life the sacrilegious counterfeit presentment. Tourists in Egypt who are addicted to sketching, or who dabble in photography, will do well to remember these conscientious scruples of the Moslem race, and not let their zeal for bringing back pictorial mementoes of their travels induce them to take “snapshots” of mosque interiors, for instance. In Egypt, no doubt, the natives have too wholesome a dread of the Franks to manifest their outraged feelings by physical force, but still it is ungenerous, not to say unchristian, to wound people’s religious prejudices. In some other countries of North Africa, notably in the interior of Morocco or Tripoli, promiscuous photography might be attended with disagreeable results, if not a certain amount of danger. A tourist would find a Kodak camera, even with all the latest improvements, a somewhat inefficient weapon against a mob of fanatical Arabs.
That imposing pile standing out so prominently on the western horn of Pharos is the palace of Ras-et-Teen, built by Mehemet Ali, and restored in execrable taste by his grandson, the ex-Khedive Ismail. Seen from the ship’s side, the palace has a rather striking appearance. The exterior, however, is the best part of it, as the ornate and gaudy interior contains little of interest. From the upper balconies there is a good view of the harbor, and the gardens are well worth visiting. They are prettily laid out, and among many other trees, olives may be seen, unknown in any other part of the Delta. The decorations and appointments of the interior are characterized by a tawdry kind of magnificence. The incongruous mixture of modern French embellishments and oriental splendor gives the saloons a meretricious air, and the effect is bizarre and unpleasing. It is a relief to get away from such obtrusive evidences of the ex-Khedive’s decorative tastes, by stepping out on the balcony. What a forest of masts meets the eye as one looks down on the vast harbor; the inner one, a “sea within a sea,” crowded with vessels bearing the flags of all nations, and full of animation and movement.
The view is interesting, and makes one realize the commercial importance of this great emporium of trade, the meeting-place of the commerce of three continents, yet it does not offer many features to distinguish it from a view of any other thriving port.
For the best view of the city and the surrounding country we must climb the slopes of Mount Caffarelli to the fort which crowns the summit, or make our way to the fortress Kom-el-Deek on the elevated ground near the Rosetta Gate. Alexandria, spread out like a map, lies at our feet. At this height the commonplace aspect of a bustling and thriving seaport, which seems on a close acquaintance to be Europeanized and modernized out of the least resemblance to an oriental city, is changed to a prospect of some beauty. At Alexandria, even more than at most cities of the East, distance lends enchantment to the view. From these heights the squalid back streets and the bustling main thoroughfares look like dark threads woven into the web of the city, relieved by the white mosques, with their swelling domes curving inward like fan palms towards the crescents flashing in the rays of the sun, and their tall graceful minarets piercing the smokeless and cloudless atmosphere. The subdued roar of the busy streets and quays is occasionally varied by the melodious cry of the muezzin. Then looking northward one sees the clear blue of the Mediterranean, till it is lost in the hazy horizon. To the west and south the placid waters of the Mareotis Lake, in reality a shallow and insalubrious lagoon, but to all appearances a smiling lake, which, with its water fringed by the low-lying sand dunes, reminds the spectator of the peculiar beauties of the Norfolk Broads.
Looking south beyond the lake lies the luxuriant plain of the Delta. The view may not be what is called picturesque, but the scenery has its special charm. The country is no doubt flat and monotonous, but there is no monotony of color in this richly cultivated plain.
Innumerable pens have been worn out in comparison and simile when describing the peculiar features of this North African Holland. To some this huge market garden with its network of canals, simply suggests a chess-board. Others are not content with these prosaic comparisons, and their more fanciful metaphor likens the country to a green robe interwoven with silver threads, or to a seven-ribbed fan, the ribs being of course the seven mouths of the Nile. Truth to tell, though, the full force of this fanciful image would be more felt by a spectator who is enjoying that glorious panorama from the Cairo citadel, as the curious triangular form of the Delta is much better seen from that point than from Alexandria at the base of the triangle.
One may differ as to the most appropriate metaphors, but all must agree that there are certain elements of beauty about the Delta landscape. Seen, as most tourists do see it, in winter or spring, the green fields of waving corn and barley, the meadows of water-melons and cucumbers, the fields of pea and purple lupin one mass of colors, interspersed with the palm-groves and white minarets, which mark the site of the almost invisible mud villages, and intersected thickly with countless canals and trenches that in the distance look like silver threads, and suggest Brobdignagian filigree work, or the delicate tracery of King Frost on our window-panes, the view is impressive and not without beauty.
In the summer and early autumn, especially during August and September when the Nile is at its height, the view is more striking though hardly so beautiful. Then it is that this Protean country offers its most impressive aspect. The Delta becomes an inland archipelago studded with green islands, each island crowned with a white-mosqued village, or conspicuou
s with a cluster of palms. The Nile and its swollen tributaries are covered with huge-sailed dahabyehs, which give life and variety to the watery expanse.
Alexandria can boast of few “lions” as the word is usually understood, but of these by far the most interesting is the column known by the name of Pompey’s Pillar. Everyone has heard of the famous monolith, which is as closely associated in people’s minds with Alexandria as the Colosseum is with Rome, or the Alhambra with Granada. It has, of course, no more to do with the Pompey of history (to whom it is attributed by the unlettered tourist) than has Cleopatra’s Needle with that famous Queen, the “Serpent of Old Nile”; or Joseph’s Well at Cairo with the Hebrew Patriarch. It owes its name to the fact that a certain prefect, named after Cæsar’s great rival, erected on the summit of an existing column a statue in honor of the horse of the Roman Emperor Diocletian. There is a familiar legend which has been invented to account for the special reason of its erection, which guide-book compilers are very fond of. According to this story, this historic animal, through an opportune stumble, stayed the persecution of the Alexandrian Christians, as the tyrannical emperor had sworn to continue the massacre till the blood of the victims reached his horse’s knees. Antiquarians and Egyptologists are, however, given to scoffing at the legend as a plausible myth.
In the opinion of many learned authorities, the shaft of this column was once a portion of the Serapeum, that famous building which was both a temple of the heathen god Serapis and a vast treasure-house of ancient civilization. It has been suggested — in order to account for its omission in the descriptions of Alexandria, given by Pliny and Strabo, who had mentioned the two obelisks of Cleopatra — that the column had fallen, and that the Prefect Pompey had merely re-erected it in honor of Diocletian, and replaced the statue of Serapis with one of the Emperor — or of his horse, according to some chroniclers. This statute, if it ever existed, has now disappeared. As it stands, however, it is a singularly striking and beautiful monument, owing to its great height, simplicity of form, and elegant proportions. It reminds the spectator a little of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square, and perhaps the absence of a statue is not altogether to be regretted considering the height of the column, as it might suggest to the irrepressible tourists who scoff at Nelson’s statue as the “Mast-headed Admiral,” some similar witticism at the expense of Diocletian.
With the exception of this monolith, which, “a solitary column, mourns above its prostrate brethren,” only a few fragmentary and scattered ruins of fallen columns mark the site of the world-renowned Serapeum. Nothing else remains of the famous library, the magnificent portico with its hundred steps, the vast halls, and the four hundred marble columns of that great building designed to perpetuate the glories of the Ptolemies. This library, which was the forerunner of the great libraries of modern times, must not be confounded with the equally famous one that was attached to the Museum, whose exact site is still a bone of contention among antiquarians. The latter was destroyed by accident, when Julius Cæsar set fire to the Alexandrian fleet. The Serapeum collection survived for six hundred years, till its wanton destruction through the fanaticism of the Caliph Omar. The Arab conqueror is said to have justified this barbarism with a fallacious epigram, which was as unanswerable, however logically faulty, as the famous one familiar to students of English history under the name of Archbishop Morton’s Fork. “If these writings,” declared the uncompromising conqueror, “agree with the Book of God, they are useless, and need not be preserved; if they disagree, they are pernicious, and ought to be destroyed.” Nothing could prevail against this flagrant example of a petitio principii, and for six months the three hundred thousand parchments supplied fuel for the four thousand baths of Alexandria.
Hard by Pompey’s Pillar is a dreary waste, dotted with curiously carved structures. This is the Mohammedan cemetery. As in most Oriental towns, the cemetery is at the west end of the town, as the Mohammedans consider that the quarter of the horizon in which the sun sets is the most suitable spot for their burying-places.
In this melancholy city of the dead are buried also many of the ruins of the Serapeum, and scattered about among the tombs are fragments of columns and broken pedestals. On some of the tombs a green turban is roughly painted, strangely out of harmony with the severe stone carving. This signifies that the tomb holds the remains of a descendant of the prophet, or of a devout Moslem, who had himself, and not vicariously as is so often done, made the pilgrimage to the sacred city of Mecca. Some of the head-stones are elaborately carved, but most are quite plain, with the exception of a verse of the Koran cut in the stone. The observant tourist will notice on many of the tombs a curious little round hole cut in the stone at the head, which seems to be intended to form a passage to the interior of the vault, though the aperture is generally filled up with earth. It is said that this passage is made to enable the Angel Israfel at the Resurrection to draw out the occupant by the hair of his head; and the custom which obtains among the lower class Moslems of shaving the head with the exception of a round tuft of hair in the middle — a fashion which suggests an incipient pigtail or an inverted tonsure — is as much due to this superstition as to sanitary considerations.
Of far greater interest than this comparatively modern cemetery are the cave cemeteries of El-Meks. These catacombs are some four miles from the city. The route along the low ridge of sand-hills is singularly unpicturesque, but the windmills which fringe the shore give a homely aspect to the country, and serve at any rate to break the monotony of this dreary and prosaic shore. We soon reach Said Pacha’s unfinished palace of El-Meks, which owes its origin to the mania for building which helped to make the reign of that weak-minded ruler so costly to his over-taxed subjects. One glimpse at the bastard style of architecture is sufficient to remove any feeling of disappointment on being told that the building is not open to the public. The catacombs, which spread for a long distance along the seashore, and of which the so-called Baths of Cleopatra are a part, are very extensive, and tourists are usually satisfied with exploring a part. There are no mummies, but the niches can be clearly seen. The plan of the catacombs is curiously like the wards of a key.
There are few “sights” in Alexandria of much interest besides those already mentioned. In fact, Alexandria is interesting more as a city of sites than sights. It is true that the names of some of the mosques, such as that of the One Thousand and One Columns, built on the site of St. Mark’s martyrdom, and the Mosque of St. Athanasius, are calculated to arouse the curiosity of the tourist: but the interest is in the name alone. The Mosque of many Columns is turned into a quarantine station, and the Mosque of St. Athanasius has no connection with the great Father except that it stands on the site of a church in which he probably preached.
Then there is the Coptic Convent of St. Mark, which, according to the inmates, contains the body of the great Evangelist — an assertion which would scarcely deceive the most ignorant and the most credulous tourist that ever entrusted himself to the fostering care of Messrs. Cook, as it is well known that St. Mark’s body was removed to Venice in the ninth century. The mosque, with the ornate exterior and lofty minaret, in which the remains of Said Pacha are buried, is the only one besides those already mentioned which is worth visiting.
The shores of the Delta from Alexandria to Rosetta are singularly rich in historical associations, and are thickly strewn with historic landmarks. The plain in which have been fought battles which have decided the fate of the whole western world, may well be called the “Belgium of the East.” In this circumscribed area the empires of the East and West struggled for the mastery, and many centuries later the English here wrested from Napoleon their threatened Indian Empire. In the few miles’ railway journey between Alexandria and the suburban town of Ramleh the passenger traverses classic ground. At Mustapha Pacha the line skirts the Roman camp, where Octavius defeated the army of Antony, and gained for Rome a new empire. Unfortunately there are now few ruins left of this encampment, as most of the
stones were used by Ismail Pacha in building one of his innumerable palaces, now converted into a hospital and barracks for the English troops. Almost on this very spot where Octavius conquered, was fought the battle of Alexandria, which gave the death-blow to Napoleon’s great scheme of founding an Eastern Empire, and converting the Mediterranean into “un lac français.” This engagement was, as regards the number of troops engaged, an insignificant one; but as the great historian of modern Europe has observed, “The importance of a triumph is not always to be measured by the number of men engaged. The contest of 12,000 Britons with an equal number of French on the sands of Alexandria, in its remote effect, overthrew a greater empire than that of Charlemagne, and rescued mankind from a more galling tyranny than that of the Roman Emperors.” A few minutes more and the traveller’s historical musings are interrupted by the shriek of the engine as the train enters the Ramleh station. This pleasant and salubrious town, with its rows of trim villas standing in their own well-kept grounds and gardens, the residences of Alexandrian merchants, suggests a fashionable or “rising” English watering place rather than an Oriental town. As a residence it has no doubt many advantages, including a good and sufficient water supply, and frequent communication by train with Alexandria. But these are not the attractions which appeal to the traveller or tourist. The only objects of interest are the ruins of the Temple of Arsenoe, the wife of Ptolemy Philadelphus. Concerning this temple there is an interesting and romantic legend, which no doubt suggested to Pope his fanciful poem, “The Rape of the Lock”: —
“Not Berenice’s hair first rose so bright,