by Grant Allen
A long line of islands completely shelters Venice from the sea, so that the waters around its walls are very seldom ruffled into waves. The tide also rises and falls but little, not more than two or three feet, if so much. Thus no banks of pestiferous mud are laid bare at low water by the ebb and flow, and yet some slight circulation is maintained in the canals, which, were it not for this, would be as intolerable as cesspools. Small boats can find their way over most parts of the lagoon, where in many places a safe route has to be marked out with stakes, but for large vessels the channels are few. A long island, Malamocco by name, intervenes between Venice and the Adriatic, on each side of which are the chief if not the only entrances for large ships. At its northern end is the sandy beach of the Lido, a great resort of the Venetians, for there is good sea-bathing. But except this, Malamocco has little to offer; there is more interest in other parts of the lagoon. At the southern end, some fifteen miles away, the old town of Chioggia is a favorite excursion. On the sea side the long fringe of narrow islands, of which Malamocco is one, protected by massive walls, forms a barrier against the waves of the Adriatic. On the land side is the dreary fever-haunted region of the Laguna Morta, like a vast fen, beyond which rise the serrate peaks of the Alps and the broken summits of the Euganean Hills. The town itself, the Roman Fossa Claudia, is a smaller edition of Venice, joined like it to the mainland by a bridge. If it has fewer relics of architectural value it has suffered less from modern changes, and has retained much more of its old-world character.
Murano, an island or group of islands, is a tiny edition of Venice, and a much shorter excursion, for it lies only about a mile and a half away to the north of the city. Here is the principal seat of the workers in glass; here are made those exquisite reproductions of old Venetian glass and of ancient mosaic which have made the name of Salviati noted in all parts of Europe. Here, too, is a cathedral which, though it has suffered from time, neglect and restoration, is still a grand relic. At the eastern end there is a beautiful apse enriched by an arcade and decorated with inlaid marbles, but the rest of the exterior is plain. As usual in this part of Italy (for the external splendor of St. Mark’s is exceptional) all richness of decoration is reserved for the interior. Here columns of choice stones support the arches; there is a fine mosaic in the eastern apse, but the glory of Murano is its floor, a superb piece of opus Alexandrinum, inlaid work of marbles and porphyries, bearing date early in the eleventh century, and richer in design than even that at St. Mark’s, for peacocks and other birds, with tracery of strange design, are introduced into its patterns.
But there is another island beyond Murano, some half-dozen miles away from Venice, which must not be left unvisited. It is reached by a delightful excursion over the lagoon, among lonely islands thinly inhabited, the garden grounds of Venice, where they are not left to run wild with rank herbage or are covered by trees. This is Torcello, the ancient Altinum. Here was once a town of note, the center of the district when Venice was struggling into existence. Its houses now are few and ruinous; the ground is half overgrown with populars and acacias and pomegranates, red in summer-time with scarlet flowers. But it possesses two churches which, though small in size are almost unique in their interest, the duomo, dedicated to St. Mary, and the church of Sta. Fosca. They stand side by side, and are linked together by a small cloister. The former is a plain basilica which retains its ancient plan and arrangement almost intact. At one end is an octagonal baptistry, which, instead of being separated from the cathedral by an atrium or court, is only divided from it by a passage. The exterior of the cathedral is plain; the interior is not much more ornate. Ancient columns, with quaintly carved capitals supporting stilted semicircular arches, divide the aisles from the nave. Each of these has an apsidal termination. The high altar stands in the center of the middle one, and behind it, against the wall, the marble throne of the bishop is set up on high, and is approached by a long flight of marble steps. On each side, filling up the remainder of the curve, six rows of steps rise up like the seats of an amphitheater, the places of the attendant priests. The chancel, true to its name, is formed by enclosing a part of the nave with a low stone wall and railing. Opinions differ as to the date of this cathedral. According to Fergusson it was erected early in the eleventh century, but it stands on the site of one quite four centuries older, and reproduces the arrangement of its predecessor if it does not actually incorporate portions of it. Certainly the columns and capitals in the nave belong, as a rule, to an earlier building. Indeed, they have probably done duty more than once, and at least some of them were sculptured before the name of Attila had been heard of in the delta of the North Italian rivers.
The adjoining church of Sta. Fosca is hardly less interesting. An octagonal case, with apses at the eastern end, supports a circular drum, which is covered by a low conical roof, and a cloister or corridor surrounds the greater part of the church. This adds much to the beauty of the design, the idea, as Fergusson remarks, being evidently borrowed from the circular colonnades of the Roman temples. He also justly praises the beauty of the interior. In this church also, which in its present condition is not so old as the cathedral, the materials of a much older building or buildings have been employed. But over these details or the mosaics in the cathedral we must not linger, and must only pause to mention the curious stone chair in the adjacent court which bears the name of the throne of Attila; perhaps, like the chair of the Dukes of Corinthia, it was the ancient seat of the chief magistrate of the island.
XI. ALEXANDRIA
The bleak and barren shores of the Nile Delta — Peculiar shape of the city — Strange and varied picture of Alexandrian street life — The Place Mehemet Ali — Glorious panorama from the Cairo citadel — Pompey’s Pillar — The Battle of the Nile — Discovery of the famous inscribed stone at Rosetta — Port Said and the Suez Canal.
It is with a keen sense of disappointment that the traveller first sights the monotonous and dreary-looking Egyptian sea-board. The low ridges of desolate sandhills, occasionally broken by equally unattractive lagunes, form a melancholy contrast to the beautiful scenery of the North African littoral farther west, which delighted his eyes a short time before, while skirting the Algerian coast. What a change from the thickly-wooded hills gently sloping upwards from the water’s edge to the lower ridges of the Atlas range, whose snow-clad peaks stand out clear in the brilliant atmosphere, the landscape diversified with cornfields and olive groves, and thickly studded with white farmhouses, looking in the distance but white specks, and glittering like diamonds under the glowing rays of the sun. Now, instead of all this warmth of color and variety of outline, one is confronted by the bleak and barren shores of the Nile Delta.
If the expectant traveller is so disenchanted with his first view of Egypt from the sea, still greater is his disappointment as the ship approaches the harbor. This bustling and painfully modern-looking town — the city of the great Alexander, and the gate of that land of oriental romance and fascinating association — might, but for an occasional palm-tree or minaret standing out among the mass of European buildings, be mistaken for some flourishing European port, say a Marseilles or Havre plumped down on the Egyptian plain.
But though we must not look for picturesque scenery and romantic surroundings in this thriving port, there is yet much to interest the antiquarian and the “intelligent tourist” in this classic district. The Delta sea-board was for centuries the battle-ground of the Greek and Roman Empires, and the country between Alexandria and Port Said is strewed with historic sites.
Alexandria itself, though a much Europeanized and a hybrid sort of city, is not without interest. It has been rather neglected by Egyptian travel writers, and consequently by the tourist, who rarely strikes out a line for himself. It is looked upon too much as the port of Cairo, just as Leghorn is of Pisa and Florence, and visitors usually content themselves with devoting to it but one day, and then rushing off by train to Cairo.
It would be absurd, of course, to compare Al
exandria, in point of artistic, antiquarian, and historical interest, to this latter city; though, as a matter of fact, Cairo is a modern city compared to the Alexandria of Alexander; just as Alexandria is but of mushroom growth contrasted with Heliopolis, Thebes, Memphis, or the other dead cities of the Nile Valley of which traces still remain. It has often been remarked that the ancient city has bequeathed nothing but its ruins and its name to Alexandria of to-day. Even these ruins are deplorably scanty, and most of the sites are mainly conjectural. Few vestiges remain of the architectural splendor of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Where are now the 4,000 palaces, the 4,000 baths, and the 400 theaters, about which the conquering general Amru boasted to his master, the Caliph Omar? What now remains of the magnificent temple of Serapis, towering over the city on its platform of one hundred steps? Though there are scarcely any traces of the glories of ancient Alexandria, once the second city of the Empire, yet the recollection of its splendors has not died out, and to the thoughtful traveller this city of memories has its attractions. Here St. Mark preached the Gospel and suffered martyrdom, and here Athanasius opposed in warlike controversy the Arian heresies. Here for many centuries were collected in this center of Greek learning and culture the greatest intellects of the civilized world. Here Cleopatra, “vainqueur des vainqueurs du monde,” held Antony willing captive, while Octavius was preparing his legions to crush him. Here Amru conquered, and here Abercrombie fell. Even those whose tastes do not incline them to historical or theological researches are familiar, thanks to Kingsley’s immortal romance, with the story of the noble-minded Hypatia and the crafty and ambitious Cyril, and can give rein to their imagination by verifying the sites of the museum where she lectured, and the Cæsarum where she fell a victim to the atrocious zeal of Peter the Reader and his rabble of fanatical monks.
The peculiar shape of the city, built partly on the Pharos Island and peninsula, and partly on the mainland, is due, according to the chroniclers, to a patriotic whim of the founder, who planned the city in the form of a chlamys, the short cloak or tunic worn by the Macedonian soldiers. The modern city, though it has pushed its boundaries a good way to the east and west, still preserves this curious outline, though to a non-classical mind it rather suggests a star-fish. Various legends are extant to account for the choice of this particular spot for a Mediterranean port. According to the popular version, a venerable seer appeared to the Great Conqueror in a dream, and quoted those lines of the Odyssey which describe the one sheltered harbor on the northern coast of Egypt:— “a certain island called Pharos, that with the high-waved sea is washed, just against Egypt.” Acting on this supernatural hint, Alexander decided to build his city on that part of the coast to which the Pharos isle acted as a natural breakwater, and where a small Greek fishing settlement was already established, called Rhacotis. The legend is interesting, but it seems scarcely necessary to fall back on a mythical story to account for the selection of this site. The two great aims of Alexander were the foundation of a center for trade, and the extension of commerce, and also the fusion of the Greek and Roman nations. For the carrying out of these objects, the establishment of a convenient sea-port with a commanding position at the mouth of the Nile was required. The choice of a site a little west of the Nile mouths was, no doubt, due to his knowledge of the fact that the sea current sets eastward, and that the alluvial soil brought down by the Nile would soon choke a harbor excavated east of the river, as had already happened at Pelusium. It is this alluvial wash which has rendered the harbors of Rosetta and Damietta almost useless for vessels of any draught, and at Port Said the accumulation of sand necessitates continuous dredging in order to keep clear the entrance of the Suez Canal.
A well-known writer on Egypt has truly observed that there are three Egypts to interest the traveller. The Egypt of the Pharoahs and the Bible, the Egypt of the Caliphates and the “Arabian Nights,” and the Egypt of European commerce and enterprise. It is to this third stage of civilization that the fine harbor of Alexandria bears witness. Not only is it of interest to the engineer and the man of science, but it is also of great historic importance. It serves as a link between ancient and modern civilization. The port is Alexander the Great’s best monument— “si quæris monumentum respice.” But for this, Alexandria might now be a little fishing port of no more importance than the little Greek fishing village, Rhacotis, whose ruins lie buried beneath its spacious quays. It is not inaccurate to say that the existing harbor is the joint work of Alexander and English engineers of the present century. It was originally formed by the construction of a vast mole (Heptastadion) joining the island of Pharos to the mainland; and this stupendous feat of engineering, planned and carried out by Alexander, has been supplemented by the magnificent breakwater constructed by England in 1872, at a cost of over two and a half millions sterling. After Marseilles, Malta, and Spezzia, it is perhaps the finest port in the Mediterranean, both on account of its natural advantages as a haven, and by reason of the vast engineering works mentioned above. The western harbor (formerly called Eunostos or “good home sailing”) of which we are speaking — for the eastern, or so-called new harbor, is choked with sand and given up to native craft — has only one drawback in the dangerous reef at its entrance, and which should have been blasted before the breakwater and the other engineering works were undertaken. The passage through the bar is very intricate and difficult, and is rarely attempted in very rough weather. The eastern harbor will be of more interest to the artist, crowded as it is with the picturesque native craft and dahabyehs with their immense lateen sails. The traveller, so disgusted with the modern aspect of the city from the western harbor, finds some consolation here, and begins to feel that he is really in the East. Formerly this harbor was alone available for foreign ships, the bigoted Moslems objecting to the “Frankish dogs” occupying their best haven. This restriction has, since the time of Mehemet Ali, been removed, greatly to the advantage of Alexandrian trade.
During the period of Turkish misrule — when Egypt under the Mamelukes, though nominally a vilayet of the Ottoman Empire, was practically under the dominion of the Beys — the trade of Alexandria had declined considerably, and Rosetta had taken away most of its commerce. When Mehemet Ali, the founder of the present dynasty, rose to power, his clear intellect at once comprehended the importance of this ancient emporium, and the wisdom of Alexander’s choice of a site for the port which was destined to become the commercial center of three continents.
Mehemet is the creator of modern Alexandria. He deepened the harbor, which had been allowed to be choked by the accumulation of sand, lined it with spacious quays, built the massive forts which protect the coast, and restored the city to its old commercial importance, by putting it into communication with the Nile through the medium of the Mahmoudiyeh Canal. This vast undertaking was only effected with great loss of life. It was excavated by the forced labor of 250,000 peasants, of whom some 20,000 died from the heat and the severe toil.
On landing from the steamer the usual scrimmage with Arab porters, Levantine hotel touts, and Egyptian donkey boys, will have to be endured by the traveller. He may perhaps be struck, if he has any time or temper left for reflection at all, with the close connection between the English world of fashion and the donkey, so far at least as nomenclature is concerned, each animal being named after some English celebrity. The inseparable incidents of disembarkation at an Eastern port are, however, familiar to all who have visited the East; and the same scenes are repeated at every North African port, from Tangier to Port Said, and need not be further described.
The great thoroughfare of Alexandria, a fine street running in a straight line from the western gate of the city to the Place Mehemet Ali, is within a few minutes of the quay. A sudden turn and this strange mingling of Eastern and Western life bursts upon the spectator’s astonished gaze. This living diorama, formed by the brilliant and ever-shifting crowd, is in its way unique. A greater variety of nationalities is collected here than even in Constantinople or cosmopolitan
Algiers. Let us stand aside and watch this motley collection of all nations, kindreds, and races pouring along this busy highway. The kaleidoscopic variety of brilliant color and fantastic costume seems at first a little bewildering. Solemn and impassive-looking Turks gently ambling past on gaily caparisoned asses, grinning negroes from the Nubian hills, melancholy-looking fellahs in their scanty blue kaftans, cunning-featured Levantines, green-turbaned Shereefs, and picturesque Bedouins from the desert stalking along in their flowing bernouses, make up the mass of this restless throng. Interspersed, and giving variety of color to this living kaleidoscope, gorgeously-arrayed Jews, fierce-looking Albanians, their many-colored sashes bristling with weapons, and petticoated Greeks. Then, as a pleasing relief to this mass of color, a group of Egyptian ladies glide past, “a bevy of fair damsels richly dight,” no doubt, but their faces, as well as their rich attire, concealed under the inevitable yashmak surmounting the balloon-like trousers. Such are the elements in this mammoth masquerade which make up the strange and varied picture of Alexandrian street life. And now we may proceed to visit the orthodox sights, but we have seen the greatest sight Alexandria has to show us.
