ROUTE: — BY the Rue des Soeurs and Gabbari, taking the Mex Tram (White Star). The journey is uncomfortable and uninspiring, but Mex is pleasant.
We start from the south side of the Square, down the long Rue des Soeurs, which takes its name from the Roman Catholic Convent and School near its entrance. The surroundings become squalid.
Right of Rue des Soeurs: — Rue Behari Bey leads to the mound of Kom-el-Nadoura, which rises abruptly out of mean streets. Its history before the arrival of Napoleon (1798 p. 86) is unknown. His engineer Cafarelli fortified it for him, and it held back the British advance in 1801, (p. 88). The entrance is on the south side, through a doorway by a winding path fringed with prickly pear and pepper trees. The summit — 104 feet above the sea — is now used as a signalling station and observatory under the Ports and Lights Administration. Interesting set of instruments, and fine view of harbour and city. At the N.N.W. corner are some remains of Cafarelli’s masonry. — Outside the Fort, in the Rue Babel-Akhdar (Section II) is the Gold and Silver Bazaar.
Left of Rue des Soeurs is the Genenah, a curious rabbit warren.
The tram passes down Rue Ibrahim Premier. To the right, close to the docks, in the Rue Karam, is a Franciscan church and school. They are modern and of no interest, but stand on a site that was important historically. Here was the Church of St. Theonas (p. 46) and the early palace of the bishops. Here St. Athanasius was brought up. The Arabs (641) incorporated what they found into a fine Mosque, called the Mosque of the Seventy (from some fallacious connection with the Septuagint) or the Mosque of the 1000 Columns. It was on the lines of the Mosque of Ibn Touloun at Cairo; the Rue Karam bisects its area; its prayer niche faced south west. It was standing in a ruined condition when the French came, and was turned into artillery barracks.
Just before the tram reaches the Canal we pass, right, the cotton exchange of Minet-el-Bassal. A visit — introduction necessary — is interesting. The Exchange is round a pleasant courtyard, with a fountain in the midst. Samples are exhibited. The whole neighbourhood is given up to this, the main industry, of Alexandria; warehouses; picturesque wooded machinery for cleaning the cotton and pressing it into bales; in the season, the streets are slippery with greasy fluff.
The Mahmoudieh Canal (p. 91) is now crossed. The banks have here their original stone casings and double descents, recalling the commercial enterprise of Mohammed Ali. A walk along the banks to the left is dirty but attractive; it can terminate at the Kom es Chogafa Catacombs (Section III). Right, the Canal enters the Western Harbour.
Then comes the district of Gabbari, called after a sheikh of that name. Here was the Western Cemetery of the Ancient City; the finds have been taken to the Museum (Room 14). Nothing interesting until Mex.
Mex, once a fishing village, might have become a prosperous suburb of Alexandria, like Ramleh. But the intervening slums have choked access to it. It lies midway on the big curve of the Western Harbour, the waters of Lake Mariout being close behind. There is a good pier, with a wooden causeway that leads on to a distant rock. The little sea front has rather a Neapolitan air.
Beyond Mex are the limestone quarries that provided the stone for the ancient and the modern towns. They are cut in the ridge that here separates lake and sea.
The village of Dekhela lies further along the beach. Fine walk from it to Amrieh (Section VIII). Beyond it the desert begins, strewn with fragments of antique pottery.
Beyond Dekhela, at the western point of the Harbour: Fort Agame. A strategic point in Napoleonic times (p. 86) and in the Bombardment of Alexandria (p. 94). Magnificent bathing. Just off the Fort is Marabout Island, so called from the tomb of a local saint which stands here, adorned with votive models of boats. Makrizi (writing in the 14th cent.) says that men lived longer on Marabout Island than any where else in the world, but no one at all lives here now. From it extends the chain of reefs that close the entrance of the Western Harbour (p. 6). — It is easy to visit this district from Alexandria by sailing boat, but not easy to get back again in the evening when the wind drops.