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."[5] 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,
The heavens bespangling with dishevelled light."
This pretty story, which has been immortalized by Catullus, is as
follows:--When Ptolemy Euergetes left for his expedition to Syria, his
wife Berenice vowed to dedicate her hair to Venus Zephyrites should her
husband return safe and sound. Her prayer was answered, and in fulfilment
of her vow she hung within the Temple of Arsenoe the golden locks that had
adorned her head. Unfortunately they were stolen by some sacrilegious
thief. The priests were naturally troubled, the King was enraged, and the
Queen inconsolable. However, the craft of Conon, the Court astronomer,
discovered a way by which the mysterious disappearance could be
satisfactorily explained, the priests absolved of all blame, and the
vanity of the Queen gratified. The wily astronomer-courtier declared that
Jupiter had taken the locks and transformed them into a constellation,
placing it in that quarter of the heavens (the "Milky Way") by which the
gods, according to tradition, passed to and from Olympus. This pious fraud
was effected by annexing the group of stars which formed the tail of the
constellation Leo, and declaring that this cluster of stars was the new
constellation into which Berenice's locks had been transformed. This
arbitrary modification of the celestial system is known by the name of
Coma Berenices, and is still retained in astronomical charts.
"I 'mongst the stars myself resplendent now,
I, who once curled on Berenice's brow,
The tress which she, uplifting her fair arm,
To many a god devoted, so from harm
They might protect her new-found royal mate,
When from her bridal chamber all elate,
With its sweet triumph flushed, he went in haste
To lay the regions of Assyria waste."[6]
A few miles northwest of Ramleh, at the extremity of the western horn of
Aboukir Bay, lies the village of Aboukir. The railway to Rosetta skirts
that bay of glorious memory, and as the traveller passes by those silent
and deserted shores which fringe the watery arena whereon France and
England contended for the Empire of the East, he lives again in those
stirring times, and the dramatic episodes of that famous Battle of the
Nile crowd upon the memory. That line of deep blue water, bounded on the
west by the rocky islet, now called Nelson's Island, and on the east by
Fort St. Julien on the Rosetta headland, marks the position of the French
fleet on the 1st of August, 1798. The fleet was moored in the form of a
crescent close along the shore, and was covered by the batteries of Fort
Aboukir. So confident was Bruèys, the French Admiral, in the strength of
his position, and in his superiority in guns and men (nearly as three to
two) over Nelson's fleet, that he sent that famous despatch to Paris,
declaring that the enemy was purposely avoiding him. Great must have been
his dismay when the English fleet, which had been scouring the
Mediterranean with bursting sails for six long weeks in search of him, was
signaled, bearing down unflinchingly upon its formidable foe--that foe
with which Nelson had vowed he would do battle, if above water, even if he
had to sail to the Antipodes. "By to-morrow I shall have gained a peerage
or Westminster Abbey," were the historic words uttered by the English
Admiral when the French fleet was sighted, drawn up in order of battle in
Aboukir Bay. The soundings of this dangerous roadstead were unknown to
him, but declaring that "where there was room for the enemy to swing,
there must be room for us to anchor," he ordered his leading squadron to
take up its position to the landward of the enemy. The remainder of the
English fleet was ordered to anchor on the outside of the enemy's line,
but at close quarters, thus doubling on part of the enemy's line, and
placing it in a defile of fire. In short, the effect of this brilliant and
masterly disposition of the English fleet was to surround two-thirds of
the enemy's ships, and cut them off from the support of their consorts,
which were moored too far off to injure the enemy or aid their friends.
The French Admiral, in spite of his apparently impregnable position, was
consequently out-manoeuvred from the outset, and the victory of Nelson
virtually assured.
Evening set in soon after Nelson had anchored. All through the night the
battle raged fiercely and unintermittently, "illuminated by the incessant
discharge of over two thousand cannon," and the flames which burst from
the disabled ships of the French squadron. The sun had set upon as proud a
fleet as ever set sail from the shores of France, and morning rose upon a
strangely altered scene. Shattered and blackened hulks now only marked the
position they had occupied but a few hours before. On one ship alone, the
_Tonnant_, the tricolor was flying. When the _Theseus_ drew near to take
her as prize, she hoisted a flag of truce, but kept her colors flying.
"Your battle flag or none!" was the stern reply, as her enemy rounded to
and prepared to board. Slowly and reluctantly, like an expiring hope, that
pale flag fluttered down her lofty spars, and the next that floated there
was the standard of Old England. "And now the battle was over--India was
saved upon the shores of Egypt--the career of Napoleon was checked, and
his navy was annihilated. Seven years later that navy was revived, to
perish utterly at Trafalgar--a fitting hecatomb for the obsequies of
Nelson, whose life seemed to terminate as his mission was then and thus
accomplished." The glories of Trafalgar, immortalized by the death of
Nelson, have no doubt obscured to some extent those of the Nile. The
latter engagement has not, indeed, been enshrined in the memory of
Englishmen by popular ballads--those instantaneous photographs, as they
might be called, of the highest thoughts and strongest emotions inspired
by patriotism--but hardly any great sea-fight of modern times has been
more prolific in brilliant achievements of heroism and deeds of splendid
devotion than the Battle of the Nile. The traditions of this terrible
combat have not yet died out among the Egyptians and Arabs, whose
forefathers had lined the shores of the bay on that memorable night, and
watched with mingled terror and astonishment the destruction of that great
armament. It was with some idea of the moral effect the landing of English
troops on the shores of this historic bay would have on Arabi's soldiery,
that Lord Wolseley contemplated disembarking there the English
expeditionary force in August, 1882.
On the eastern horn of Aboukir Bay, on the Rosetta branch of the Nile, and
about five miles from its mouth, lies the picturesque town of Rosetta. Its
Arabic name is Rashid, an etymological coincidence which has induced some
writers to jump to the conclusion that it is the birthplace of Haroun Al
Rashid. To some persons no doubt the town would be shorn of much of its
interest if dissociated from our old friend of "The Thousand and One
Nights;" but the indisputable fact remains that Haroun Al Rashid died some
seventy years before the foundation of the town in A. D. 870. Rosetta was
a port of some commercial importance until the opening of the Mahmoudiyeh
Canal in 1819 diverted most of its trade to Alexandria. The town is not
devoid of architectural interest, and many fragments of ruins may be met
with in the half-deserted streets, and marble pillars, which bear signs of
considerable antiquity, may be noticed built into the doorways of the
comparatively modern houses. One of the most interesting architectural
features of Rosetta is the North Gate, flanked with massive towers of a
form unusual in Egypt, each tower being crowned with a conical-shaped
roof. Visitors will probably have noticed the curious gabled roofs and
huge projecting windows of most of the houses. It was from these
projecting doorways and latticed windows that such fearful execution was
done to the British troops at the time of the ill-fated English expedition
to Egypt in 1807. General Wauchope had been sent by General Fraser, who
was in command of the troops, with an absurdly inadequate force of 1,200
men to take the strongly-garrisoned town. Mehemet Ali's Albanian troops
had purposely left the gates open in order to draw the English force into
the narrow and winding streets. Their commander, without any previous
examination, rushed blindly into the town with all his men. The Albanian
soldiery waited till the English were confined in this infernal labyrinth
of narrow, crooked streets, and then from every window and housetop rained
down on them a perfect hail of musket-shot and rifle-ball. Before the
officers could extricate their men from this terrible death-trap a third
of the troops had fallen. Such was the result of this rash and futile
expedition, which dimmed the lustre of their arms in Egypt, and
contributed a good deal to the loss of their military prestige. That this
crushing defeat should have taken place so near the scene of the most
glorious achievement of their arms but a few years before, was naturally
thought a peculiar aggravation of the failure of this ill-advised
expedition.
To archæological students and Egyptologists Rosetta is a place of the
greatest interest, as it was in its neighborhood that the famous inscribed
stone was found which furnished the clue--sought in vain for so many years
by Egyptian scholars--to the hieroglyphic writings of Egypt. Perhaps none
of the archæological discoveries made in Egypt since the land was
scientifically exploited by the savants attached to Napoleon's expedition,
not even that of the mummified remains of the Pharaohs, is more precious
in the eyes of Egyptologists and antiquarians than this comparatively
modern and ugly-looking block of black basalt, which now reposes in the
Egyptian galleries of the British Museum. The story of its discovery is
interesting. A certain Monsieur Bouchard, a French Captain of Engineers,
while making some excavations at Fort St. Julien, a small fortress in the
vicinity of Rosetta, discovered this celebrated stone in 1799. The
interpretation of the inscription for many years defied all the efforts of
the most learned French savants and English scholars, until, in 1822, two
well-known Egyptologists, Champollion and Dr. Young, after independent
study and examination, succeeded in deciphering that part of the
inscription which was in Greek characters. From this they learnt that the
inscription was triplicate and trilingual: one in Greek, the other in the
oldest form of hieroglyphics, the purest kind of "picture-writing," and
the third in demotic characters--the last being the form of hieroglyphics
used by the people, in which the symbols are more obscure than in the pure
hieroglyphics used by the priests. The inscription, when finally
deciphered, proved to be one of comparatively recent date, being a decree
of Ptolemy V., issued in the year 196 B. C. The Rosetta stone was acquired
by England as part of the spoils of war in the Egyptian expedition of
1801.
At Rosetta the railway leaves the coast and goes south to Cairo.
If the traveller wishes to see something of the agriculture of the Delta,
he would get some idea of the astonishing fertility of the country by
merely taking the train to Damanhour, the center of the cotton-growing
district. The journey does not take more than a couple of hours. The
passenger travelling by steamer from Alexandria to Port Said, though he
skirts the coast, can see no signs of the agricultural wealth of Egypt,
and for him the whole of Egypt might be an arid desert instead of one of
the most fertile districts in the whole world. The area of cultivated
lands, which, however, extends yearly seawards, is separated from the
coast by a belt composed of strips of sandy desert, marshy plain, low
sandhills, and salt lagunes, which varies in breadth from fifteen to
thirty miles. A line drawn from Alexandria to Damietta, through the
southern shore of Lake Boorlos, marks approximately the limit of
cultivated land in this part of the Delta. The most unobservant traveller
in Egypt cannot help perceiving that its sole industry is agriculture, and
that the bulk of its inhabitants are tillers of the soil. Egypt seems,
indeed, intended by nature to be the granary and market-garden of North
Africa, and the prosperity of the country depends on its being allowed to
retain its place as a purely agricultural country. The ill-advised, but
fortunately futile, attempts which have been made by recent rulers to
develop manufactures at the expense of agriculture, are the outcome of a
short-sighted policy or perverted ambition. Experience has proved that
every acre diverted from its ancient and rational use as a bearer of crops
is a loss to the national wealth.
That "Egypt is the gift of the Nile" has been insisted upon with "damnable
iteration" by every writer on Egypt, from Herodotus downwards. According
to the popular etymology,[7] the very name of the Nile ([Greek: Neilos],
from [Greek: nea ilys], new mud) testifies to its peculiar fertilizing
properties. The Nile is all in all to the Egyptian, and can we wonder that
Egyptian mythologists recognized in it the Creative Principle waging
eternal warfare with Typhon, the Destructive Principle, represented by the
encroaching desert? As Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole has well observed, "without
the Nile there would be no Egypt; the great African Sahara would spread
uninterruptedly to the Red Sea. Egypt is, in short, a long oasis worn in
the rocky desert by the ever-flowing stream, and made green and fertile by
its waters."
At Cairo the Nile begins to rise about the third week in June, and the
beginning of the overflow coincides with the heliacal rising of the Dog
Star. The heavens have been called the clocks of the Ancients, and,
according to some writers, it was the connection between the rise of the
Nile and that of the Dog Star that first opened the way to the study of
astronomy among the ancient Egyptians, so that not only was the Nile the
creator of their country, but also of their science. The fellahs, however,
still cherish a lingering belief in the supernatural origin of the
overflow. They say that a miraculous drop of water falls into the Nile on
the 17th of June, which causes the river to swell. Till September the
river continues to rise, not regularly, but by leaps and bounds. In this
month it attains its full height, and then gradually subsides till it
reaches its normal height in the winter months.
As is well known, the quality of the harvest depends on the height of the
annual overflow--a rise of not less than eighteen feet at Cairo being just
sufficient, while a rise of over twenty-six feet, or thereabouts, would
cause irreparable damage. It is a common notion that a very high Nile is
beneficial; whereas an excessive inundation would do far more harm to the
country than an abnormal deficiency of water. Statistics show conclusively
that most of the famines in Egypt have occurred after an exceptionally
high Nile. Shakespeare, who, we know, is often at fault in matters of
natural science, is perhaps partly accountable for this popular
error:--"The higher Nilus swells, the more it promises," he makes
Antony say, when describing the wonders of Egypt to Cæsar.
[Illustration]
The coast between Rosetta and Port Said is, like the rest of the Egyptian
littoral, flat and monotonous. The only break in the dreary vista is
afforded by the picturesque-looking town of Damietta, which, with its
lofty houses, looking in the distance like marble palaces, has a striking
appearance seen from the sea. The town, though containing some spacious
bazaars and several large and well-proportioned mosques, has little to
attract the visitor, and there are no antiquities or buildings of any
historic interest. The traveller, full of the traditions of the Crusades,
who expects to find some traces of Saladin and the Saracens, will be
doomed to disappointment. Damietta is comparatively modern, the old
Byzantine city having been destroyed by the Arabs early in the thirteenth
century, and rebuilt--at a safer distance from invasion by sea--a few
miles inland, under the name of Mensheeyah. One of the gateways of the
modern town, the Mensheeyah Gate, serves as a reminder of its former name.
Though the trade of Damietta has, in common with most of the Delta
sea-ports, declined since the construction of the Mahmoudiyeh Canal, it is
still a town of some commercial importance, and consular representatives
of several European powers are stationed here. To sportsmen Damietta
offers special advantages, as it makes capital headquarters for the
wild-fowl shooting on Menzaleh Lake, which teems with aquatic birds of all
kinds. Myriads of wild duck may be seen feeding here, and "big game"--if
the expression can be applied to birds--in the shape of herons, pelicans,
storks, flamingoes, etc., is plentiful. In the marshes which abut on the
lake, specimens of the papyrus are to be found, this neighborhood being
one of the few habitats of this rare plant. Soon after rounding the
projecting ridge of low sand-hills which fringe the estuary of the
Damietta Branch of the Nile, the noble proportions of the loftiest
lighthouse of the Mediterranean come into view. It is fitted with one of
the most powerful electric lights in the world, its penetrating rays being
visible on a clear night at a distance of over twenty-five miles. Shortly
afterwards the forest of masts, apparently springing out of the desert,
informs the passenger of the near vicinity of Port Said.
There is, of course, nothing to see at Port Said from a tourist's
standpoint. The town is little more than a large coaling station, and is
of very recent growth. It owes its existence solely to the Suez Canal, and
to the fact that the water at that part of the coast is deeper than at
Pelusium, where the isthmus is narrowest. The town is built partly on
artificial foundations on the strip of low sand-banks which forms a
natural sea-wall protecting Lake Menzaleh from the Mediterranean. In the
autumn at high Nile it is surrounded on all sides by water. An imaginative
writer once called Port Said the Venice of Africa--not a very happy
description, as the essentially modern appearance of this coaling station
strikes the most unobservant visitor. The comparison might for its
inappositeness rank with the proverbial one between Macedon and Monmouth.
Both Venice and Port Said are land-locked, and that is the only feature
they have in common.
The sandy plains in the vicinity of the town are, however, full of
interest to the historian and archæologist. Here may be found ruins and
remains of antiquity which recall a period of civilization reaching back
more centuries than Port Said (built in 1859) does years. The ruins of
Pelusium (the Sin of the Old Testament), the key of Northeastern Egypt in
the Pharaonic period, are only eighteen miles distant, and along the shore
may still be traced a few vestiges of the great highway--the oldest road
in the world of which remains exist--constructed by Rameses II., in 1350
B. C., when he undertook his expedition for the conquest of Syria.