CHAPTER III.
P. AND O. STEAMER “TANJORE”—ARRIVAL OF THE MAIL AND PASSENGERS—ANCIENT BRINDISI—BRINDISI TO ALEXANDRIA— ALEXANDRIA PAST AND PRESENT—ITS TRADE.
I arrived at Brindisi at 10 p.m. and was straightway driven off to the quay, was soon on board the P. and O. steamship Tanjore, commanded by Captain Briscoe, and not many minutes afterwards in my berth and fast asleep. My slumber was disturbed at 6 a.m. by the arrival of the Indian mail and a large number of passengers, who produced a great commotion over-head quite incompatible with sleep. I therefore turned out, and was soon on deck watching the busy scene. Some little time after I had breakfasted I discovered two of the party which I was to accompany, Messrs. F. L. James and E. L. Phillipps. We were to meet three more at Cairo, and one at Suez, to complete the party.
No one would care to remain very long in Brindisi, as it is a most uninteresting place notwithstanding its antiquity. I remember once, in 1877, spending a few hours there, and was then very glad when my train left for Naples. Brindisi (ancient Brundusium) was, if I remember rightly, the birth-place of Virgil. It is a sea-port and fortified town 45 miles from Taranto. In ancient times it was one of the most important cities of Calabria. It is said by Strabo to have been governed by its own kings at the time of the foundation of Tarentum. It was one of the chief cities of the Sallentines, and the excellence of its port and commanding situation in the Adriatic were among the chief inducements of the Romans to attack them. The Romans made it a naval station, and frequently directed their operations from it. It was the scene of important operations in the war between Cæsar and Pompey. On the fall of the Western Empire it declined in importance. In the eleventh century it fell into the possession of the Normans, and became one of the chief ports of embarkation for the Crusades. Its importance as a sea-port was subsequently completely lost, and its harbour blocked. In 1870 the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company put on a weekly line of steamers between Brindisi and Alexandria for the conveyance of Her Majesty’s eastern mails, and at the same time made it a post of transit for goods brought from India by these steamers to be forwarded to the north of Italy by rail. From this cause the imports of Brindisi have suddenly risen in importance.
About 12 mid-day on the 21st November, we got under way with 110 first-class passengers on board, the weather was fine, much warmer than in Turin and Milan, and the sea smooth, which I was thankful for; 22nd the same; 23rd fine and sea smooth until about 4 p.m., when the sea became rough, and I very uncomfortable, undesirous of dinner and very desirous of being quietly settled in my berth, which I sought without loss of time, knowing by a past bitter and sour experience that I should ere long present a pitiable spectacle. During the night the sea became so rough that the port-holes of the cabins had to be closed, so that in addition to feeling excessively sick I was almost suffocated, as the weather was very warm. On the morning of the 24th, at 10 o’clock, we landed at the far-famed city of Alexandria.
Even in sunny Italy I had felt the weather, in the neighbourhood of Turin, Milan, and Bologna, cold and frosty enough in the morning for an overcoat. At Brindisi it was not so cold, but as we neared the African coast the sky grew warmer and warmer, and tinged, so to speak, with a reflection of the Libyan desert, a soft purple hue, rather than the deep blue of Italy. Only those who have witnessed sunset in Africa can form any conception of the beautiful tints reflected from the rocks and sands; there you see the soft purple, lovely crimson, pale gold, rose and violet colours all shading off into one another in the most charming manner. I have never seen anywhere such glorious sunsets as in Africa.
Having but a short time to stay in Alexandria, I made good use of it in exploring the place. Through what strange vicissitudes has this ancient city passed. Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great, B.C. 332, on the site of a village called Rakôtis, or Racoudah. Its founder wished to make it the centre of commerce between the east and west, and we know how fully his aspirations have been realized. It stood a little to the south of the present town, was 15 miles in circumference, and had a population of 300,000 free inhabitants, and at least an equal number of slaves. So distinguished was it for its magnificence, that the Romans ranked it next to their own capital, and when captured by Amru, general of the Caliph Omar (A.D. 641), it contained 4,000 palaces, 4,000 baths, 400 theatres or places of amusement, 12,000 shops for the sale of vegetables, and 40,000 tributary Jews. But we are getting on a little too fast. As I said before, it was founded B.C. 332, by Alexander the Great, who is said to have traced the plan of the new city himself, and his architect, Dinarchus or Dinocrates (the builder of the temple of Diana at Ephesus) directed its execution. The city was regularly built, and traversed by two principal streets, each 100 feet wide, and one of them four miles long. Campbell says: “He designed the shape of the whole after that of a Macedonian cloak, and his soldiers strewed meal to mark the line where its walls were to rise. These, when finished, enclosed a compass of 80 furlongs filled with comfortable abodes, and interspersed with palaces, temples, and obelisks of marble porphyry, that fatigued the eye with admiration. The main streets crossed each other at right angles, from wall to wall, with beautiful breadth, and to the length (if it may be credited) of nearly nine miles. At their extremities the gates looked out on the gilded barges of the Nile, of fleets at sea under full sail, on a harbour that sheltered navies, and on a lighthouse that was the mariner’s star and the wonder of the world.”
One-fourth of the area upon which it was built was covered with temples, palaces, and public buildings. Conspicuous upon its little isle was the famous lighthouse of Pharos, the islet being connected with the city by a mole. Under the Cæsars, Alexandria attained extraordinary prosperity; large merchant fleets carried on a reciprocal commerce with India and Ethiopia, and its industrial population were chiefly employed in the weaving of linen, and the manufacture of glass and papyrus.
The Alexandrians were turbulent, and several times revolted under the Ptolemies and the Romans. Cæsar was obliged, in B.C. 47, to put down a terrible insurrection in this city. Under the emperors, Alexandria suffered a series of massacres, which gradually depopulated it. In 611, Chosroës, King of Persia, seized it, but his son restored it to the emperors. In 641, Amru—whom I spoke of just now—took it by storm, after a siege of 14 months, and a loss of 23,000 men. The Turks captured it in 868 and 1517.