Vestiges of the ancient splendor of Alexandria are everywhere to be found. Fragments of richly-sculptured columns, of architraves, cornices, and other portions of architectural ornament, are to be seen strewed about in every quarter of the city—broken up for lime or for paving-stones, and built into the meanest houses. Huge shafts of granite are continually disclosed, half buried amongst the rubbish or the sand; and the mounds of ruins are in many cases one mass of porphyries, granites, verde-anticoes, and marbles, brought from Upper Egypt or the south of Europe. In the course of a few hours I picked up some hundred specimens of thirty different varieties of the stones I have named, which required only a little polishing to restore to them their lustre. Mosaics, and pieces of ancient glass, are also abundant; the latter marked by that iridescent semi-metallic hue which indicates decay through extreme lapse of time. The sights of Alexandria are Pompey’s Pillar, Cleopatra’s Needle, the Catacombs, the pasha’s palace, and the battle-field where Abercromby fell; the Lake Mareotis, of which a distant view usually satisfies the traveler; and the canal. Pompey’s Pillar stands on an eminence about six hundred yards from the present walls of the town, close beside the road which leads from the Rosetta Gate to the Mahmoudyè Canal. The total height of the column is ninety-eight feet. The shaft, which is a single block of red granite or syenite, is nine feet eight inches in diameter, and seventy-three in length. It is now shown to have been erected by Publius, the prefect of Egypt, in honor of the Emperor Dioclesian. It probably was only put in its place when it is said to have been erected, forming most likely a portion of some of the more ancient and noble relics of Egypt. Cleopatra’s Needles are at the opposite extremity of the town: they consist of two obelisks, one prostrate and one erect, of the same material as the column. One is seventy, the other sixty-five feet high, and about seven feet in diameter at the base. They stood originally at Heliopolis, and were brought to Alexandria by one of the Cæsars. Both are covered with hieroglyphics.
The Lake of Mareotis is one of the curiosities of the neighborhood of Alexandria, and is situated a short way beyond the Rosetta Gate. This lake, which is about a hundred and fifty miles in circumference, was originally fresh-water; and being about five or six feet deep, it answered the purpose of navigation. In consequence of its connexion with the Nile being cut off, its waters were wholly dried up, or nearly so; and in this condition it was eighty or ninety years since. An entire change followed. It is divided from the sea by mounds of sand, blown up from the shore, and its bottom is several feet lower than the level of the Mediterranean. Thus exposed to the danger of submersion, it was resolved, during the siege of Alexandria in 1788, to let in upon it the waters of the ocean. It was certain to produce a wide-spread calamity; but when did the demon War stop to consider results? Four cuts were made, each of six yards in width, and ten distant from each other. The water rushed in with a fall of six feet. Two more cuts were finished next day, and the sea finally broke down the divisions. What a scene of devastation! The sea flowed in for a week. The calamity was fearful. The sites of three hundred villages were flooded, and rendered barren for ever. The bank was afterwards closed up again, and the communication with the sea cut off; but the basin of the lake being lower than the surface of the sea, and the Mediterranean here being without tide, there was no means of drawing off the salt water. It was by degrees in a great measure evaporated by the sun, leaving a vast expanse of once fertile surface covered with a dazzling snow-white sheet of salt. In this condition I examined it in June 1845. The Nile is admitted annually to it at flood, and the lake then reappears; but the returning dry season only restores the condition previously existing. Nor does there appear to be any remedy for this, until the successive depositions of silt from the river accumulate sufficiently to raise the bottom of the lake to a level with the sea—an operation only to be effected through some vast and very indefinite lapse of time. Till then, the salt must always mingle with the fresh-water silt deposited every year. Could rice or any grain be grown on it, as in India, which flourishes even on saline grounds, the process of recovery would of course be greatly accelerated. The lake formerly communicated by a canal with a port of Old Alexandria.
In various masses of rock, composed of oölitic limestone, adjacent to the lake and near the town, are a number of curious catacombs, and other ancient works of art, including a variety of mosaics. South of the city are several high mounds, likewise interesting from the relics of ancient art found imbedded in them. The bricks used for building in Alexandria are those excavated from the ruins of the ancient city: they are quarried in abundance in all directions. They are well-formed, and excellently burnt; and so perfectly cemented together, that it is often more difficult to break the hardened mortar than the material it unites. The potter’s wheel of Alexandria is a singular one: it consists of a spindle about two feet long, turning in a socket some one and a half feet under the level of the floor, and a collar about three inches from the upper extremity. The circular disk on which the ware is thrown is of course above this last. The wheel is turned at the rate of about two revolutions a second, by a circular flange some one and a half feet in diameter just above its lower insertion. The potter sits on the floor, his legs in a small pit below the wheel, shuffling with his feet on the flange just mentioned, and so making the wheel revolve. It is certainly the most awkward-looking implement by much that I have seen for the purpose. Yet the ware turned out is good, strong, well-shaped, and is afterwards thoroughly burned in kilns.
Admission to the pasha’s palace may be procured by an order from the vakeel, or steward. It is a neat, but plain and unpretending building. The view from it is beautiful. The rooms are handsome, and well-proportioned and arranged; and the floors, of inlaid brightly-polished wood, have a very pleasing effect.
Travelers for India usually hurry through Egypt, with the view of not losing the steamboat, which is ready for them at Suez. But as there are two steamers a-month, those who have time and money to spare, may occupy themselves very delightfully in spending a fortnight on the journey. The conveyance of travelers from Alexandria to Suez is effected by the pasha, at an expense of £12. This charge includes everything save liquors and hotel bills of all kinds at Cairo, which fall on the passenger, and frequently amount to 15s., or £1. All charges of this class seem in Egypt extortionately high, and are indeed out of all proportion to tavern bills in Europe. But then it must be remembered that the whole establishments are permanently maintained, for the sake of employment, one day in fourteen; that unless when the passengers are on the way, the innkeepers are wholly idle. And now the arrangements hurry every one so fast, that they can only get some half-dozen hours of even the passengers, desiring to saddle them with the expenses incurred on their account during the interval when the house is open for the reception of guests, but when there are no guests to be received. Having arranged matters at the Transit Office, the traveler is duly informed of the hour when the vans quit the hotel, and should make the best of his time in the interval. The vans proceed to the place of embarkation, about two miles distant, on the Mahmoudyè Canal. The luggage is forwarded beforehand on camels, a carpet-bag being all that is allowed—it is all, indeed, that is requisite—for each individual to carry along with him.
The road to the canal leads through the great square already described, and on to the Rosetta Gate—an old ragged fragment of the fortifications of the town. And here, to his astonishment, the traveler finds that Alexandria is being fortified, after the manner of Paris, with walls, and bastions, and ditches, and all the other contrivances of military engineership. The works are being constructed on the recommendation of the French, and under the superintendence of French engineers. A quarter of a century in time, and some millions of money, may be allowed for their completion, the miserable starving population being taxed for this useless and wanton waste. Passing onward, the road leads close to the elevation on which stands Pompey’s Pillar. Not far to the left is the battle-field where Sir Ralph Abercromby fell.
The Mahmoudyé Canal connects Alexandria with Atfèh, a navigable point on the Nile. This important public work was begun in 1819, and completed in little more than six months, having been opened on the 24th of January 1820. It is forty-eight miles in length, ninety feet across, and about eighteen feet in depth. For a long distance, the banks of the canal are ornamented on one side by neat villas, with most beautiful shrubberies and flower-gardens in front of them. The little kiosks, or summer-seats, consisting in a circle of benches, shadowed by lofty trees, almost hang over the banks. The canal is nowhere strait, and passes along a country so perfectly level, that locks are not required. One only exists at Atfèh. As many as a hundred and fifty thousand people are said to have been employed in the excavation of the canal: the inhabitants of all the villages in Lower Egypt were marched down to the stations respectively assigned to them, one month’s pay having been advanced to enable them to supply themselves with provisions. The assemblage of so enormous a multitude, which would have formed a double line from end to end of the canal, had they stood as close as possible to each other, was sure to be productive of fatal results; and accordingly twenty thousand are understood to have perished on the occasion. Provisions ran scanty, many fell victims to starvation, and pestilence swept many more away. Two-thirds of them were without tools or clothing of any kind whatever, groping up the mud, and lifting it out with their hands. The last portion of this statement appeared to myself incredible, until I had seen people engaged in cleaning out a portion of an old canal near the Lake Mareotis. They dug with their hands into the soft mud, until a portion about a cubic foot in size was detached; this was passed on to the nearest workman, and so conveyed by others to the bank. Not one vestige of implement or attire was possessed, or apparently desired by them.
The banks of the canal are sufficiently high to intercept the view of the adjoining country, so that, after passing the villas already alluded to, there is really nothing to be seen. A good sailing-boat traversed the distance in eight hours; one, tugged by horses, in ten. A small high-pressure steamer is presently employed, which goes snort, snorting along at the rate of about five miles an hour. The boats containing the passengers and luggage are towed behind. We started at half-past six, and were no less than eleven hours on the canal, reaching Atfèh on the Nile at half-past five. It has always been my fortune to pass this filthy little village late at night, or early in the morning, so as scarcely to be able to see it, and the matter did not seem entitled to excite much regret. On reaching the Nile, the traveler finds a neatly-kept and commodious steamer awaiting him—not very roomy, but such as passengers, if not numbering more than fifty, may put up with without much discomfort. In going up the Nile, several large works for assisting the irrigation of the country are passed.
One who has examined the magnificent specimens of grain now grown in England, is exceedingly disappointed on examining that for which Egypt, for thirty centuries, has been famous. I collected many specimens in 1840: it is exceedingly prolific on the root, but not more so than grain at home thinly sown on rich soil. The stalks of the barley are seldom above eighteen or twenty inches long; each root produces from six to twenty-five stems, fifteen being about the average. There are six rows of grains or pickles on each stalk, each row containing at an average about ten grains, so that the return from the seed in from six to nine hundred. The roots are from six to fourteen inches from each other, and I do not believe that an acre of land in Egypt will yield nearly so much grain, by measure or weight, as a similar surface in England—both under present cultivation. The barley itself, when rubbed out, would have been little short of unsaleable in average season at home, so thin, husky, and poor it was. It is trampled out of the straw by oxen, and cleared of chaff by the wind. The straw is chopped or cut up into what we in India call boosa, by an implement closely resembling a turnip-sowing harrow, drawn over it by oxen, each roller being armed with three or four circular cutters. The crop which most surprises by its abundance is tobacco, vast fields of which extend in all directions. Nor is it to be wondered at that the cultivation of this narcotic should rival in extent that of grain, or roots, or fruits for human food. In Egypt, every man who can afford it smokes at every hour of the day. The dull and watery eye, the want of energy and enterprise apparent in all, tell too plainly how the drug is doing its work. It is sad to see Englishmen reducing themselves to the level of Turks, as is too often the case, by the filthy and degrading practice of everlasting smoking. A singular variety of raft, consisting of a framework of slight sticks, buoyed up by a vast number of earthen pots, is frequently to be seen on the Nile. They appear to be chiefly employed in carrying coarse earthenware down the river.
From the moment of arrival in Egypt, we feel that we are in a country possessing many relics of the past; but this feeling cannot be said to exist in perfect force till we approach Cairo, which is the threshold of all the great marvels of ancient art. Those who have not before sailed up the Nile, watch for the first appearance of the pyramids. These become suddenly visible about forty miles below Cairo; and the cry that they are in sight, renders the spectator almost breathless with anxiety to discover them. They are seen far across the desert breaking the western horizon, and seem at this enormous distance almost as large as when looked at from Cairo. Here the desert sand has fairly drifted over the fertile soil, and is blown in masses into the river. The banks of the Nile, indeed, show that this has been an event of frequent occurrence since silt began to accumulate, alternate beds of sand and mud being visible all down a section of ten to fifteen feet of bank. The sand examined through a magnifier, is of a yellowish smoke color, sharp and angular, often of a pretty regular cubical form. It looks like the quartz portions of disintegrated granite, which it probably is.