Alexandria: A History and a GuideForster, E. M. (Edward Morgan)
History
Alexandria: A History and a Guide
Forster, E. M. (Edward Morgan)
Alexandria (Egypt) -- Guidebooks; Alexandria (Egypt) -- History
Over the Mosque are vaulted rooms. From the summit of the mass is a
_View_ of Alexandria, not beautiful but instructive. From right to
left are:—Fort Adda, Ras-el-Tin lighthouse (background); minarets of
Abou el Abbas and Bouseiri Mosques (foreground); Kom-el-Nadur Fort;
Terbana Mosque (foreground); Pompey’s Pillar (back); Kom-el-Dik
Fort; the long line of Eastern suburbs; beyond them the distant
minaret of Sidi Bishr; the coast ends in the wooded promontory of
Montazah. Close beneath is the modern Breakwater stretching towards
the opposing promontory of Silsileh; and left, awash with waves, the
Diamond Rock.—And now let the visitor (if the effort is not beyond
him) elevate himself 400 feet higher into the air. Let him replace
the Ras-el-Tin lighthouse by a Temple to Poseidon; let him delete
the mosques and the ground they stand on, and imagine in their place
an expanse of water crossed by a Dyke; let him add to “Pompey’s
Pillar” the Temple of Serapis and Isis and the vast buttressed walls
of the Library; let him turn Kom-el-Dik into a gorgeous and
fantastic park, with the Tomb of Alexander at its feet; and the
Eastern Suburbs into gardens; and finally let him suppose that it is
not Silsileh that stretches towards him but the peak of the
Ptolemaic Palace, sheltering to its right the ships of the royal
fleet and flanked on the landward side by the tiers of the theatre
and the groves of the Mouseion.—Then he may have some conception of
what Ancient Alexandria looked like from the summit of the
Pharos—what she looked like when the Arabs entered in the autumn of
641.
Beneath the Batteries on the north of the Fort, and almost level
with the beach, is a long gallery in which lie some shells that were
fired by the English in 1882.
* * * * *
The tram now follows the curve of the _Eastern Harbour_, a
beautifully shaped basin. It was the main harbour of the ancients,
but Mohammed Ali when he planned the modern city, developed the
Western instead (p. 91). There is a sea wall in two stages, to break
the waves which dash right on to the road in rough weather; and
there is a very fine promenade—the New Quays—which stretches all the
way from Kait Bey to Silsileh. A walk along it can be delightful,
though occasionally marred by bad smells.—We pass, right, the
Bouseiri Mosque (_see_ above) and finally come to the French
Gardens, that connect with the Square, whence we started.
Left of the French Gardens are: the French Consulate—an isolated
building; the General Post Office—entered from the road behind; and
the Church of St. Andrews—Church of Scotland. To the right, down Rue
de l’Eglise Maronite, is the Maronite Church, an inoffensive
building; (for the Maronites _see_ pp. 77, 213).
SECTION III.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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