Reminiscences of Travel in Australia, America, and Egypt

by Sir Richard Tangye

We were glad to get to bed notwithstanding that the carpets in the bedrooms were flapping in the wind in the most vigorous manner during the night.

On rising next morning we found the storm had not abated, indeed it continued with undiminished fury during the whole of our stay. Our time, however, being limited, it was necessary to disregard the weather in order to visit the scene of the recent operations and the ruins of the city. On leaving the hotel our dragoman of three years ago, Kalifa, at once recognised us, and under his guidance we made a tour of the fortresses, going first to Ras-el-Tin. We found the palace of that name, which forms the landward boundary of the fortress, still partially in ruins and apparently deserted. One could not help feeling that the architect, in selecting such a site for a royal residence, must have regarded the possibility of an attack upon the fort from the sea as being too remote to be taken into account. Some of the other forts had at one time stood isolated from the town, but apparently it might be said of the Alexandrians that

“Exceeding peace had made them bold,”

for the approaches to the forts had gradually been built upon until at length some of the houses were even erected against the fortifications. These were the houses which were destroyed during the bombardment, and the ruin of which gave rise to the impression that the city itself had been shelled. All the forts presented the same dismal aspect of ruin. Shattered ramparts, battered casemates, huge holes in the walls of the store-houses; the heavy Armstrong guns dismantled, some with the muzzle pointed high up in the air, others lying on the ground; in all cases the gun-carriages smashed and crushed into shapelessness; burst shells, and heaps of stones and mortar lying everywhere; great deep pits in the ground, showing where an “Inflexible” shell had burst. The buildings and ramparts are of loosely-built stonework, hence wherever a shell struck, it told with full and destructive effect. Here and there one could see that a single shell had penetrated a rampart, scattered the earth, upheaved a heavy Armstrong, and enveloped a casemate in a heap of demolished masonry. In Fort Aïda an explosion, which wrecked the whole place, occurred early in the action. In the whole of the forts there were Armstrong guns of great calibre and of modern date. Their appearance after the bombardment was most extraordinary: pieces knocked out of the muzzles, huge slabs sheared out of their sides, and in many cases the coils pitted with shot marks. In most places, and at Fort Meks in particular, the muzzles were burst, but this was the work of the landing parties shortly after the action. There can be no question that the armament of these forts was of a very formidable character, and that the condition of the fleet after the encounter might have been a very serious one had the guns throughout been well handled.

After leaving the Forts we went with a friend, long resident in Alexandria, to Ramleh, the fashionable suburb of the city. The word Ramleh means “sand,” and that being so it may be said that no place was ever more appropriately named. It is a mere sand waste by the shore, and its villas are separated by sand wastes. The effect is somewhat Australian, and the use of verandahs and Venetian shutters helps the suggestion. Our friend’s house was close to what is known as Gun Hill, that is, where the 40-pounders were, and from his Egyptian roof he could see Arabi’s advanced position and the whole of the British camp. At 4 p.m. every day it was the custom to go and see the practice from Gun Hill. Mr. A.’s house was open during the whole time, and he told us it was for the most part more like a picnic than a campaign. The officers, however, were frequently called from his billiard table by an alarm from the camp, and on such occasions Mr. A. had an understanding with them that should the English be driven in they were to warn him when retreating past his house by firing a volley through his windows! There were of course times of great anxiety notwithstanding the excitement and interest.

Mr. A. was in Alexandria during the massacre, and at the time of the bombardment he was only away two days, being the first to return to his house and live in it. While there, many of the neighbouring houses were looted. His description of the daily shooting of looters reminded one of the accounts of the latter days of the Paris Commune. Mr. A.’s garden is ornamented with heavy English shells, which, he tells his visitors, fell there—from a cart!

During the afternoon we had a stroll through the European quarter of the city, and were amazed at the destruction to be seen on every hand. The rows of fine houses, the shops, the buildings of the Grand Square, the Place Mohammed Ali, with its gardens, all a mass of unsightly ruins, from which workmen were getting out the stones and stacking them up in long rows on the footways. We had been pretty familiar with Alexandria, but in the maze of ruined stonework we were completely at a loss and could not find our way. Kalifa, however, came to our assistance, and guided by him we took a drive through the native quarter, and soon perceived that, though the destruction by incendiarism was unfortunately greatest in the European quarter, the petroleurs had not spared their fellows, for many native houses were burned. The extent to which property was destroyed is incredible. There must be several miles of streets in the sheerest ruin. The poor shopkeepers of the Place Mohammed Ali now occupy temporary wooden shanties, and the general aspect of this once gay and opulent quarter is wretched in the extreme.

We next day paid a visit to Fort Meks, but except that its armament was somewhat heavier than that of its fellows, there were no new features to be seen. The same desolate appearance of ruin and destruction—crippled gun-carriages, burst guns, crumbling ramparts, and shell-ploughed ground. This fort, from the accuracy of its gun practice, was the most troublesome to the fleet. The five terrible “Armstrongs,” however, lay burst and useless in the sand drifts, with the rude and forgotten graves of the poor gunners round about them.

A flood of misplaced eloquence has been expended in denouncing the conduct of the British Government for having “bombarded and utterly destroyed a defenceless commercial city,” and the statement has been repeated so often as to be believed by many; but I will venture to say that no one will for one moment believe it who has had the opportunity, as I have, of being conducted over the city and the fortifications by an intelligent gentleman, an old resident, who was present during the whole of the operations, and who emphatically denies that the bombardment of the forts caused any greater damage than I have described. The charge has come mainly from the advocates of peace; but it is a misfortune that such a sacred cause should be damaged by gross exaggerations, and by statements which it is impossible to sustain. The cause of peace, like the temperance cause, has suffered greatly by this habit of exaggeration.