Chapter XI: Section I

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FROM THE SQUARE TO THE Rue Rosette.

ROUTE:—Square, Rue Chérif Pacha, Rue Rosette, leading through the most modern section of the town. No tram line.

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CHIEF POINTS OF INTEREST:—Square and Statue of Mohammed Ali; Banco di Roma; Mosque of the Prophet Daniel; St. Saba; Greco-Roman Museum.

THE SQUARE.

_The Square_ (officially, Place Mohammed Ali; formerly Place des Consuls; known to cabmen as “Menschieh” from the adjoining Police Station) was laid out by Mohammed Ali as the centre of his new city. (About 1830; see p. 92). In Ptolemaic times the ground here was under the sea. The Square is over 100 yds. broad and nearly 500 long and well planted, but unworthy buildings surround it. It suffered in the riots of 1882 (p. 95.) everything was then burnt excepting the statue of Mohammed Ali and the Church of St. Mark.

In the Centre:—_Equestrian Statue of Mohammed Ali_, an impressive specimen of French Sculpture, by Jacquemart, exhibited in the Salon of 1872. Orthodox Mohammedans were hostile to its erection, and even now there is no inscription on it. Its presence is the more welcome since it is one of the few first class objects in the city. It should be studied from every point of view.

Right as one faces the Statue:—_The Mixed Tribunals_, where, in accordance with arrangements dating from 1875, civil and commercial cases between Egyptians and Europeans are tried.

Left:—_The French Gardens_, a pleasant strip, stretching at right angles from the Square to the New Quays, (p. 140).

Also left:—_Anglican Church of St. Mark_, which with the adjacent St. Mark’s Buildings was built on land granted to the English by Mohammed Ali. Looking through the railings of the church-yard is the funny little bust of General Earle (k. 1885 at Kirbekan in the Soudan). It was erected by the European Community, and represents their chief incursion into the realms of art. The Church itself, considering its date (1855), and its pseudo-Byzantine architecture, is however a tolerable building. The interior is restful and the stained glass and triptych in the chancel strike a pleasing note of colour. Historically, its only associations are with the fighting against Arabi in 1882 (p. 93). The Regiments it commemorates are the 2nd Bn. Duke of Cornwall’s Light infantry (on the scroll by the entrance stairs); 2nd. Bn. Derbyshires; Royal Marine Artillery; 1st. Bn. London Division; Royal Artillery 1st Bn. Royal West Kents (in the Nave). In the churchyard trees multitudinous, sparrows gather at sunset, and fill the Square with their chatter.

End of the Square:—_The Bourse_, with arcaded exterior and clock. Inside is the Cotton Exchange, the chief in the Egyptian trade; the howls and cries that may be heard here of a morning proceed not from a menagerie but from the wealthy merchants of Alexandria as they buy and sell. At the other end of the same hall is the Stock Exchange. The whole scene is well worth a visit (introduction necessary).

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_Rue Chérif Pacha_, a smart little street bristling with flag staffs, leads out of the Square to the left of the Bourse. Here are the best shops. Towards the end, left, at the entrance of the Rue Toussoum Pacha, is the _Banco di Roma_, the finest building in the city. Architect, Gorra. A modified copy of the famous Palazzo Farnese, which Antonio da San Gallo and Michelangelo built in the 16th cent., at Rome. The materials are artificial stone and narrow bricks of a charming pale red. It has two stories as against the Farnese’s three, but there is a sort of half storey up under the heavy cornice. Each side of the door are elaborate torch holders of bent iron; over door, the Wolf of Rome. In a cosmopolitan city like Alexandria, which has never evolved an architecture of its own, there is nothing incongruous in this copy of the Italian Renaissance. A little further up Rue Toussoum Pacha is the _Land Bank of Egypt_, with a good semi-circular portico.

Rue Chérif Pacha then joins the Rue Rosette.

Rue Rosette.

This street, despite its modern appearance, is the most ancient in the city. It runs on the lines of the Canopic Way, the central artery of Alexander’s town, (p. 10), and under the Ptolemies it was lined from end to end with marble colonnades. Its full title is “Rue de la Porte Rosette” from the Rosetta Gate in the old Arab walls through which it passed out eastwards (p. 81). The Municipality have recently changed its name to the unmeaning Rue Fouad Premier, thus breaking one of the few links that bound their city to the past.

At its entrance, right, are:—the Caracol Attarine (British Main Guard); the Rue de la Gare du Caire, leading to the main railway station; and the Mohammed Ali Club, the chief in the town—a small temple to Serapis once stood on its site. Here too is Cook’s office.

100 yds. down it is crossed by the Rue Nebi Daniel and by a tramway. Here, in ancient times, was the main crossway of the ancient city—one of the most glorious places in the world (p. 10). Achilles Tatius, a bishop who in A.D. 400 wrote a somewhat foolish and improper novel called Clitophon and Leucippe, thus describes it:—

The first thing one noticed in entering Alexandria by the Gate of
the Sun (i.e. by the Rosetta Gate) was the beauty of the city. A
range of columns went from one end of it to the other. Advancing
down them, I came in time to the place that bears the name of
Alexander, and there could see the other half of the town, which was
equally beautiful. For just as the colonnades stretched ahead of me,
so did other colonnades now appear at right angles to them.

Thus the tramway was also lined with marble once.

Turning to the right, a few yards up the Rue Nebi Daniel, we come to:—_The Mosque of the Prophet Daniel_ which stands on the site of Alexander’s tomb—the “Soma” where he and some of the Ptolemies lay, buried in the Macedonian fashion (p. 19). The cellars have never been explored, and there is a gossipy story that Alexander still lies in one of them, intact: a dragoman from the Russian Consulate, probably a liar, said in 1850 that he saw through a hole in a wooden door “a human body in a sort of glass cage with a diadem on its head and half bowed on a sort of elevation or throne. A quantity of books or papyrus were scattered around.” The present Mosque, though the chief in the city, is uninteresting; a paved approach, a white washed door, a great interior supported by four colonnades with slightly pointed arches. The praying niche faces south instead of the usual east. All has been mercilessly restored. Stairs lead down to two tombs, assigned to the Prophet Daniel and to the mythical Lukman the Wise; it is uncertain why or when such a pair visited our city. The tombs stand in a well-crypt of cruciform shape, above which is a chapel roofed by a dome and entered from the mosque through a door. Here and there some decorations struggle through the whitewash.

In a building to the right of the approach to the Mosque are the _Tombs of the Khedivial Family_, worth seeing for their queerness; there is nothing like them in Alexandria. The Mausoleum is cruciform, painted to imitate marble, and covered with Turkish carpets. Out of the carpet rise the tombs, of all sizes but of similar design, and all painted white and gold. A red tarboosh indicates a man, a crown with conventionalised hair a woman. The most important person buried here is Said Pacha—third tomb on the right. He was the son of Mohammed Ali and ruled Egypt 1854-1863: Mohammed Ali himself lies at Cairo.

Between the Mausoleum and the street:—a fountain with eaves and a dome; Turkish style.

Opposite the Mosque:—some antique columns used as gate posts; perhaps the facade of the Mouseion stretched along here (p. 17).

Behind the Mosque:—Fort of Kom-el-Dik. View. Site of ancient Paneum or Park of Pan—the summit of the hill was then carved into a pinecone, which a spiral path ascended.—In Arab times the walls of the shrunken city passed to the south of Kom-el-Dik, (p. 81), and a fine stretch of them still survives, half-way between the base of the Fort and the railway station; they border the road, but cannot be seen from it, being sunken; they include a moat.—Beyond the Fort the high ground continues; the little Arab quarter of Kom-el-Dik is built along its crest, and the winding lanes, though insignificant, contrast pleasantly with the glare of the European town.

We return to the Rue Rosette.

A little further down the Rue Rosette a turning on the left leads to the _Church and Convent of St. Saba_, the seat of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch. (For history of Patriarchate _see_ p. 211). A church was founded here in 615, on the site of a Temple of Apollo. The present group dates from 1687, and has an old world atmosphere that is rare in Alexandria. In the quiet court of the Convent are three tomb stones of British soldiers, dating from Napoleonic times: Colonel Arthur Brice of the Coldstreams, k. in the Battle of Alexandria, 1801 (p. 88) Thomas Hamilton Scott of the 78th, and Henry Gosle, military apothecary, who both died during General Frazer’s disastrous “reconnoitering” expedition, 1807, (p. 89).—From the court, steps descend to the church which has been odiously restored. In the nave, eight ancient columns of granite, now smeared with chocolate paint. In the apse of the sanctuary, fresco of the Virgin and Child. Right—Chapel of St. George with a table said to be 4th cent., and an interesting picture of the Council of Nicaea (p. 48); the Emperor Constantine presides with the bishops around him and the heretic Arius at his feet. Left—Chapel of St. Catherine of Alexandria, with a block of marble purporting to come from the column where the saint was martyred.—Hanging outside the church, three fine bells.

At the top of the street, to left, is the Greek Hospital, a pleasant building that stands in a garden.

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The Rue Rosette now passes the Native Courts (left) and reaches the Municipal Buildings. Behind the latter, a few yards up the Rue du Musée, is the Municipal Library; go up the steps opposite the entrance gate; push the door. The Library is good considering its miserable endowment; the city that once had the greatest Library in the world now cannot afford more than £300 per annum for the combined purchase and binding of her books.

Beyond the library is a far more adequate institution—the Greco-Roman Museum.

THE GRECO-ROMAN MUSEUM.

The collection was not formed until 1891, by which time most of the antiques in the neighbourhood had passed into private hands. It is consequently not of the first order and little in it has outstanding beauty. Used rightly, it is of great value, but the visitor who “goes through” it will find afterwards that it has gone through him, and that he is left with nothing but a vague memory of fatigue. The absence of colour, the numerous small exhibits in terra cotta and limestone, will tend to depress him, and to give a false impression of a civilization which, whatever its defects, was not dull. He should not visit the collection until he has learned or imagined something about the ancient city, and he should visit certain definite objects, and then come away—a golden rule indeed in all museums. He may then find that a scrap of the past has come alive.

The collection is well housed (date of building 1895) and well catalogued. There is a Guide (in French) by the Director, Professor Breccia, extracts from which are pasted up about the rooms. On this scholarly work the following notes are based. They are compiled, however, from a particular point of view. They attempt to illustrate the historical section of the book (p. 1), and are connected with it by cross references.

For arrangement of exhibits, see Plan p. 108.