DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11636#0140
xi4
travels in UPPER
CHAP. IX.
Enclosure of Alexandria hy the Arabs-—Cleopatra s
needles—Cleopatra—Palace of the kings of Egypt
—Pompeys column.
The enclosure of the city of Alexandria, once so
vast, being several leagues in circumference, and
containing near a million of inhabitants, had been
contracted by the Arabs on their invasion of it. It
is this new enclosure, formed of a hundred arched
towers and solid walls, which encompasses modern
Alexandria, the state of which, as we have seen
in the preceding chapter, was so deplorable. But,
too small for a zone of such extent, the existing
city is far from occupying the whole interior of it:
it is separated from the precinct by prodigious in-
tervals, which present only the image of the most
complete devastation, of piles of rubbish, and of
wreck scattered about. Some authors pretend
that these are the very walls which Alexander had
ordered to be built. This opinion, long ago
abandoned, has of late been revived by M.
Tott * ; but their architecture has nothing similar
to that of the Greeks or of the Romans ; it is
evidently in the style of the Arabs, and of the
* Memoirs of the Baron de Tott, vol, ii, p. 1S0.
same
travels in UPPER
CHAP. IX.
Enclosure of Alexandria hy the Arabs-—Cleopatra s
needles—Cleopatra—Palace of the kings of Egypt
—Pompeys column.
The enclosure of the city of Alexandria, once so
vast, being several leagues in circumference, and
containing near a million of inhabitants, had been
contracted by the Arabs on their invasion of it. It
is this new enclosure, formed of a hundred arched
towers and solid walls, which encompasses modern
Alexandria, the state of which, as we have seen
in the preceding chapter, was so deplorable. But,
too small for a zone of such extent, the existing
city is far from occupying the whole interior of it:
it is separated from the precinct by prodigious in-
tervals, which present only the image of the most
complete devastation, of piles of rubbish, and of
wreck scattered about. Some authors pretend
that these are the very walls which Alexander had
ordered to be built. This opinion, long ago
abandoned, has of late been revived by M.
Tott * ; but their architecture has nothing similar
to that of the Greeks or of the Romans ; it is
evidently in the style of the Arabs, and of the
* Memoirs of the Baron de Tott, vol, ii, p. 1S0.
same