FROM THE SQUARE TO THE SOUTHERN QUARTERS.
Route:—By the Place St. Catherine and Pompey’s Pillar to the Mahmoudieh Canal, taking the Karmous Tram (Green Lozenge). The Ragheb Pasha Tram (Red Crescent) and the Moharrem Bey tram (Red Circle) also go from the Square to the Canal. There is also the “Circular” Tram (Green Triangle) which crosses the three lines just mentioned, on its course from Cairo Railway Station to the Docks. There is a carriage road along the Canal.
Chief points of Interest:—Pompey’s Pillar, Kom es Chogafa Catacombs, the Canal.
The Southern Quarters are neither smart nor picturesque. But they include the site of Rhakotis, the nucleus of ancient Alexandria, and preserve some remarkable antiquities (see pp. 7, 18). Here too are the churches and schools of the various religious and political bodies (see p. [211]).
We start from the south side of the Square, and immediately reach the Place St. Catherine, a triangular green. Here is the traditional site of St. Catherine’s martyrdom, whence she was transported to Mount Sinai by angels. But the legend only dates from the 9th cent. and it is unlikely that the saint ever existed (see p. [46]). Franciscans settled here in the 15th cent. and built a church that has disappeared. In 1832 Mohammed Ali granted land to the Roman Catholics, and the present Cathedral Church of St. Catherine was begun. It fell down while it was being put up, but undeterred by the omen the builders persisted, and here is the result. Gaunt without and tawdry within, the Cathedral makes no attempt to commemorate the exquisite legend round which so much that is beautiful has gathered in the West; St. Catherine of Alexandria is without grace in her own city. The approach to the church has however a certain ecclesiastic calm.—Behind (entered from Rue Sidi el Metwalli) is the Catholic Archbishop’s Palace; the wayside tomb of the Mohammedan Saint Sidi el Metwalli, a prior arrival, abuts into his Grace’s garden.
Left of the Cathedral is another in equally bad taste—the Cathedral of the Greek Community (Greek Orthodox) dedicated to the Annunciation. The Schools of the Community are close to it.
Left, after leaving the Place St. Catherine:—Rue Sidi el Metwalli, following the line of the ancient Canopic Way; it leads past the Attarine Mosque, which is worth looking at. In the past, buildings of greater importance stood on this commanding site. Here was a church to St. Athanasius, dedicated soon after his death (4th cent.). In the Arab Conquest (7th cent.) the church was adapted into a great mosque, square in shape like the Mosque of Ibn Touloun at Cairo, and stretching some way to the north of the present building; travellers mistook it for the tomb or the palace of Alexander the Great. In it stood an ancient sarcophagus, weighing nearly seven tons. The English, informed that Alexander had once lain here, took the sarcophagus away when they occupied Alexandria in 1801. (see p. [88]). The French protested, and the sheikhs of the Mosque, deeply moved, came down to the boat to bid the relic farewell. The sarcophagus is now in the British Museum, and has proved to belong to the native Pharaoh Nekht Heru Hebt. B.C. 378.—The present Mosque is wedge shaped with a minaret at the point; a good little specimen of modern Mohammedan architecture. It has a second facade in the Rue Attarine, (Scent Bazaar) whence its name. Inside is the Tomb of Said Mohammed (13th cent.), a friend of Abou el Abbas (p. [126]).—Beyond it the road becomes the Rue Rosette (see Section I); right is the American Mission Church and the Cairo Station.
Right after leaving the Place:—district inhabited by the Armenian community (see p. [212]). Their church is simple and rather attractive, and has the projecting western vestibule characteristic of Armenian architecture, e.g. of the Metropolitan Cathedral of Etchmiadzine. In the grave yard are monuments of Nubar Pasha by Puech (see p. [155]), and of Takvor Pasha. In the grounds of the school, a black basalt sphinx.
Straight ahead after leaving the Place: is the Rue Abou el Dardaa. In a turning out of it to the right (Rue Prince Moneim) in the grounds of a florist named Mousny, are some remains of the Old Protestant Cemetery.—The burials are of a later date than those at St. Saba (p. [106]). The most interesting is the Tomb of Henry Salt. Salt, a vigorous but rather shady Englishman with an artistic temperament, first came to these parts in 1809, when he was sent on a mission to Abyssinia. Six years later he became Consul General and fell in with the financial plans of Mohammed Ali (p. [90]), and acquiesced in his illegal monopolies. He was an ardent archaeologist of the commercial type and got concessions for excavating in Upper Egypt, offering the results, at exorbitant rates, to the British Museum. After much haggling the Museum bought his collection in 1823. He died near Alexandria in 1827. The quaint inscription on his tomb says:—
His ready genius explored and elucidated the Hieroglypics (sic) and other antiquities of this country. His faithful and rapid pencil and the nervous originality of his untutored senses conveyed to the world vivid ideas of the scenes that had delighted himself.