First View of Alexandria-Landing-A Vision of the Past-A City of Contrasts-Alexandria as it was-Foundation of the City-Division into Quarters-The Pharos-The Museum-The Library-The Serapeum-Rapid Historical Sketch -Alexandria under the Ptolemies and Cæsars-The Mohammedan Conquest-Alexandrian School of TheologyAlexandria as it is-The New Harbour-Bazaars-Street Life-Cleopatra's Needles-Pompey's Pillar-A Mohammedan Cemetery and Village-At the Well-The Catacombs-Mahmoodieh Canal-Nicopolis and its Memories.

HE first view of Egypt obtained by the

THE

majority of travellers is the City of Alexandria from the sea, and an unsatisfactory view it is. The long alluvial coast-line lies so low that the city cannot be seen at all until the vessel is within a dozen miles of the port. Then it rises suddenly at first Pompey's Pillar and some mounds used as forts are seen; then the Pharos, lighthouses, windmills, tall buildings, minarets, and a forest of ships' masts become visible, and in an incredibly short time since the cry of "Land ahoy!" was heard on board, the whole city is in sight, and the port is entered that is, if the vessel has arrived before the setting of the sun; but if otherwise, she will be obliged to lay to until morning, no pilot being at liberty to take his vessel into the harbour after the sun has set. Although there is nothing remarkable in the view of Alexandria from the sea-unless it be the marvellous beauty of the sunshine, in which the ancient city of

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the Ptolemies seems to float, and which glorifies the commonplace houses and barrack-like palaces-there is something remarkable in the scene which invariably follows the entry of a passenger vessel into the harbour. In a moment the ship is surrounded by a fleet of small boats to convey passengers to shore, and while the men in a score or two of these boats retain the oars, shouting and yelling in the most unearthly fashion, their partners spring on to the vessel and, scrambling or crawling up the sides, besiege the deck and bewilder the passengers with their noisy clamour. It seems as if these men represented every nation under the sun, the Arab element, however, largely prevailing. They storm the cabins, drag luggage from the saloons, block up the gangways, and create a very Babel as they cry, scream, or rave for customers, keeping up a hurricane of guttural Arabic.

Having at length, however, settled upon a boat in which to go ashore, and, after landing, having gone through the formalities of having his passport examined, and perchance, to save time, having accepted the hint that a little "backsheesh" will save him the trouble of a Custom House examination of luggage, the traveller tries to realise that he is standing on the threshold of that mysterious land of Egypt to which his fancy has so often wandered, and is already in its second great city, whose history is full of stirring memories of classic days, when, lo! he is beset by touters from hotels, and hurried to an omnibus. Then, when he dismounts in the Grand Square, he finds himself in a city of pavements and gas-lights and big hotels and French shops and English carriages. In the midst of such surroundings it is difficult to believe that this is the ancient commercial city of Egypt, whose outlines "Philip's god-like son" traced with the contents of a flour-bag-a city which was twelve hundred years old before a building was reared in Cairo-a city which, two thousand years ago, and for centuries afterwards, was the chief entrepôt of the world. In the noise and bustle of the life of to-day it is difficult to realise that this is the splendid Alexandria of the Roman Empire, the city that supplanted Athens as the centre of intellectual culture, when, "to the creative inspiration inseparable from the free life of the republics of Greece, succeeded the elaboration of philosophical thought; " the city where the incomparable champions of Christianity and paganism lived and fought their great fight, and where the routed army of paganism tried to rally and re-form itself; where St. Mark preached the Gospel; where Clement and Origen taught, and essayed to harmonise Christianity with the highest culture; and where a theology was set up that affected, and still affects, the whole of Christendom.

The Alexandria of to-day is essentially a city of contrasts, and before the traveller has been in it for many hours he will have been brought into contact with sights, sounds, and phases of life which were old before the foundations of the city were laid, and with sites and memorials which will vividly bring to mind the Alexandria of antiquity.

In our description we shall take a rapid survey of the city as it was, examine the memorials still remaining, and describe the city as it is to-day.

When Alexander the Great had subdued Syria he marched into Egypt, and having conquered Memphis-the key to the whole country-he determined upon building a city as a commercial and military metropolis. When he was on his way to visit the temple of Jupiter Ammon he came to a spot opposite the Isle of Pharos; it was a small town named Rhacōtis, where a guard had from time immemorial been posted to insure the safety

of the frontier. The keen eye of the Macedonian monarch saw at a glance that this spot, with its natural harbour and important situation, was in every way suitable for the foundation of a sea-port which should facilitate the flow of Egypt's wealth towards Greece, and connect the venerable kingdom of the Pharaohs with that widely-extended Greek Empire it was his great ambition to found. He at once ordered the plan of the city to be drawn out by Dinocrates, the celebrated architect who re-built the famous temple of Ephesus, and who had previously proposed to cut Mount Athos into a statue representing Alexander "holding in one hand a city of 10,000 inhabitants, and from the other pouring a copious river into the sea."

Many legends are told concerning the foundation of the city, and one has been generally received as an incident of especially good omen. It is said that while Dinocrates was marking out the lines of the city upon the ground, the chalk in use for the purpose was exhausted, upon which the king ordered the flour destined for the workmen's food to be employed in its stead, thereby enabling him to complete the outline of many of the streets.

Before Alexander proceeded on his journey to the African desert he saw the commencement of the flourishing city which to this day bears his name; he did not, however, see the completion of it, for although the work was commenced immediately, it was not finished till the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, under whom Cleomenes of Naucratis, another celebrated architect, carried out the plans of Dinocrates.

The city was laid out in an oblong form, resembling a Macedonian cloak. It was washed on the north by the Mediterranean, and on the south by Lake Mareotis; in front of the city, at the distance of about a mile, lay the Isle of Pharos, which sheltered the port from the north winds, while a long spit of land called Lochias projected far out into the sea towards the extremity of the Isle of Pharos, and sheltered the harbour of Alexandria on the east. The city was about four miles long, a mile in breadth, and the line of the walls and sea frontage about fifteen miles. It was laid out with wide streets crossing each other at right angles, while a thoroughfare 200 feet wide ran through the whole length of the city.

At right angles to this thoroughfare was another of equal width, extending across the city from the Gate of the Sun to the Gate of the Moon, and opening upon the vast embankment, or mole, which united the city to the Isle of Pharos, and was called the Heptastadium, from its having been seven stadia (1,423 yards) in length. This embankment, considerably enlarged by débris from the ancient city, is now more than 1,600 yards wide, and upon it the principal part of the modern town of Alexandria is built.

Strabo has given in the seventeenth book of his Geography a lengthy account of the ancient city of Alexandria, and although it is now difficult enough to identify some of the localities of which he speaks, and still more difficult to identify by the scanty relics that remain the buildings he describes, there are yet some which are comparatively free from doubt. The statement made by Strabo that the city was intersected by two wide thoroughfares crossing each other at right angles was verified by Mahmoud Bey, who in the course of his excavations discovered traces of a rectangular network of streets, and identified the two main thoroughfares, bringing to light fragments of the buildings

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which once adorned them, and also blocks of granite of which the old pavement was composed.

The city was divided into quarters. The Egyptian quarter was built on the site of the village of Rhacōtis; the Brucheion or Greek quarter lay on the mainland between Lochias and the Heptastadium; the Jews' quarter was situated at the east of Lochias, between the sea and the main street, the east end of which was closed by the Canoptic Gate; the suburb of Nicopolis lay to the east of the city, and was the scene of the races and quinquennial games; while the Necropolis, or City of the Dead, was at the extreme west end of the city.

Alexandria in its palmy days was worthy the name of its great founder: palaces and temples, public baths, museums, theatres, libraries, schools of learning, treasures of art, and the wealth of commerce all combined to make it the resort of artists, scholars, merchants, and men of culture from every part of the world. There are, as we have said, few traces now of those public buildings which had a world-wide celebrity, and with which the history of Alexandria is most intimately associated; in some cases it is merely a guess as to the part of the town in which they were situated, in others, however, there is no doubt, and these sites have a special interest to modern travellers.

The Pharos, or famous lighthouse, built in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and reckoned as one of the Seven Wonders of the World, stood on a rock at the north-eastern extremity of what was once the "Isle" of Pharos. It was a square building of white marble, several storeys high, and tapering towards the top; a gallery ran round it with staircases so wide that horses and chariots could easily ascend. Its height is said to have been 590 feet. The architect was Sostratus of Cnidos, who earned for himself a questionable immortality by the trick he played upon his patron. The inscription, placed by order of the founder on this marvellous monument which gave its name to all lighthouses afterwards erected, was, "King Ptolemy to the Gods who save those who travel by sea." The wily Sostratus carved this inscription in stucco and placed it on the Pharos, but underneath he cut in the solid stone this inscription, "Sostratus of Cnidos, the son of Dexiphanes, to the saviour Gods, for those who travel by sea." When, therefore, the stucco fell off, as it did in a comparatively short space of time, the name of the architect alone remained, cut deep in the imperishable marble. The Heptastadium, or Causeway, seven stades in length, connected the Isle of Pharos with the shore, and formed a barrier between the two ports, namely, the Great Harbour and the Harbour of Eunostus (Harbour of the Happy Return). This causeway served as an aqueduct as well as a bridge to the island.

The celebrated Museum was founded by Ptolemy Soter, and men of learning in all ages and all lands owe a debt of gratitude, not only to the founder, but to the illustrious men who came forth from this noble institution to enlighten the world. The renown of the College of Heliopolis, where the sages of ancient Greece had congregated, was transferred to the Alexandrian Museum or School of Philosophy, which became the repository of "the wisdom of the Egyptians." It was chiefly celebrated for its distinguished professors of the exact sciences, including geography, astronomy, mathematics, mechanics, natural history, medicine, and anatomy; and among its celebrated scholars were Eratosthenes and Strabo, geographers; Hipparchus and Ptolemæus, astronomers; Archimedes, the mechanician; Euclid, the founder of geometry; and Herophilus and Erasistratus, the anatomists. Philology

of the frontier. The keen eye of the Macedonian monarch saw at a glance that this spot, with its natural harbour and important situation, was in every way suitable for the foundation of a sea-port which should facilitate the flow of Egypt's wealth towards Greece, and connect the venerable kingdom of the Pharaohs with that widely-extended Greek Empire it was his great ambition to found. He at once ordered the plan of the city to be drawn out by Dinocrates, the celebrated architect who re-built the famous temple of Ephesus, and who had previously proposed to cut Mount Athos into a statue representing Alexander "holding in one hand a city of 10,000 inhabitants, and from the other pouring a copious river into the sea."

Many legends are told concerning the foundation of the city, and one has been generally received as an incident of especially good omen. It is said that while Dinocrates was marking out the lines of the city upon the ground, the chalk in use for the purpose was exhausted, upon which the king ordered the flour destined for the workmen's food to be employed in its stead, thereby enabling him to complete the outline of many of the

streets.

Before Alexander proceeded on his journey to the African desert he saw the commencement of the flourishing city which to this day bears his name; he did not, however, see the completion of it, for although the work was commenced immediately, it was not finished till the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, under whom Cleomenes of Naucratis, another celebrated architect, carried out the plans of Dinocrates.

The city was laid out in an oblong form, resembling a Macedonian cloak. It was washed on the north by the Mediterranean, and on the south by Lake Mareotis; in front of the city, at the distance of about a mile, lay the Isle of Pharos, which sheltered the port from the north winds, while a long spit of land called Lochias projected far out into the sea towards the extremity of the Isle of Pharos, and sheltered the harbour of Alexandria on the east. The city was about four miles long, a mile in breadth, and the line of the walls and sea frontage about fifteen miles. It was laid out with wide streets crossing each other at right angles, while a thoroughfare 200 feet wide ran through the whole length of the city.

At right angles to this thoroughfare was another of equal width, extending across the city from the Gate of the Sun to the Gate of the Moon, and opening upon the vast embankment, or mole, which united the city to the Isle of Pharos, and was called the Heptastadium, from its having been seven stadia (1,423 yards) in length. This embankment, considerably enlarged by débris from the ancient city, is now more than 1,600 yards wide, and upon it the principal part of the modern town of Alexandria is built.

Strabo has given in the seventeenth book of his Geography a lengthy account of the ancient city of Alexandria, and although it is now difficult enough to identify some of the localities of which he speaks, and still more difficult to identify by the scanty relics that remain the buildings he describes, there are yet some which are comparatively free from doubt. The statement made by Strabo that the city was intersected by two wide thoroughfares crossing each other at right angles was verified by Mahmoud Bey, who in the course of his excavations discovered traces of a rectangular network of streets, and identified the two main thoroughfares, bringing to light fragments of the buildings