Alexandria, Louisiana

“ Among other excursions to camps and places of interest in the neighborhood of Washington, we went, one day, to Alexandria. It is a little port on the Potomac, with one or two shabby wharves and docks, resembling those of a fishing-village in New England, and the respectable old brick town rising gently behind. In peaceful times it no doubt bore an aspect of decorous quietude and dulness ”

“ Eight miles below Washington, we stopped at the city of Alexandria, lying on the right bank of this river, in order to obtain a boat for landing at Mount Vernon. Alexandria is one of the three cities of the district of Columbia, which are Washington, Georgetown, and Alexandria. This town is said to have a considerable commerce; it has a harbour with wooden wharves, near which I saw several schooners lying, and also two brigs. It is said to contain about eight thousand inhabitants. The streets are long and very straight, crossing each other at right angles. ”

“ Very few of the planters possess more than 2,000 acres of land, and few even so much. Alexandria is, beyond all comparison, the handsomest town in Virginia, and, indeed, is among the finest in the United States. Alexandria carries on a constant trade with the West India Islands, and also some with Europe. There is a bank at Alexandria, the only one in Virginia. The establishment of a bank at Richmond was authorized by the Legislature of Virginia in December, 1792, but the subscriptions not filling it does not exist. ”

“ Whatever may be the cause many citizens are emigrating or planning to emigrate. Some ships of Alexandria are now trading regularly with the West Indies and at New Orleans. [48]
Classical Revival in mantel and doorway
THE FEDERAL PERIOD
It was not long after the Revolution that the seat of the new federal [Pg 39] government was selected near Alexandria. In fact, one old story has it that Alexandria was chosen as the site, and the patriot Washington was twitted with the advantages that would accrue to him, with such vast holdings of land so near the new capital. ”

“ Modern Alexandria is scarcely a city of the soul. Founded upon cotton with the concurrence of onions and eggs, ill built, ill planned, ill drained—many hard things can be said against it, and most Yet to some of them, are said by its inhabitants. ”

“ This house was the social and political center of Alexandria. Such men as Charles Carroll, Aaron Burr, John Paul Jones, John Marshall, Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, George Washington, and the two Fairfaxes are but a few of those who gathered here for good food, good wine, and better talk. ”

“ Ages ago, before there was civilization in Egypt, or the delta of the Nile had been formed, the whole of the country as far south as Cairo lay under the sea. The shores of this sea were a limestone desert. The coastline was smooth as a rule, but at the north-west corner an extraordinary spur jutted out from the main mass. It was not more than a mile wide, but many miles long. Its base is not far from the modern Bahig. Alexandria is built half-way down it, and its tip is the headland of Aboukir. On each side of it there used to be deep salt water. ”

“ After weathering the storms of a hundred and fifty years or better, their sea legs, or foundations, are well established in the soil of Alexandria, and they present one of the attractive sights of the town. The street slopes at a steep angle from the top of the hill, at Lee Street to the river, and the quaint old houses go stair-step down toward the Potomac in an unbroken line; sometimes a roof or a chimney sags with age, or a front façade waves a bit. ”

“ With the Builder's Companion and Workman's General Assistant, it was well-nigh impossible to go wrong. This series of pamphlets, reprinted in 1762 by William Pain of London, offered the purest and best of classical designs. The Scottish founders adapted them to their needs, with the result that Alexandria differs from other Colonial towns in Virginia, as Scotland differs from England. The spiritual and physical variations are keenly sensed.
The interior trim of Alexandria's houses is simple and severe compared to the plantation houses lining the Virginia rivers ”

“ He needed a capital for his new Egyptian kingdom, and to link it with Macedonia that capital had to be on the coast. Here was the very place—a splendid harbour, a perfect climate, fresh water, limestone quarries, and easy access to the Nile. Here he would perpetuate all that was best in Hellenism, and would create a metropolis for that greater Greece that should consist not of city-states but of kingdoms, and should include the whole inhabited world.
Alexandria was founded.
Having given his orders, the young man hurried on. He never saw a single building rise. ”

“ It is a dynasty much censored by historians, but the Egyptians, who lived under it, were more tolerant. For it had one element of greatness: it did represent the complex country that it ruled. In Upper Egypt it carried on the tradition of the Pharaohs: on the coast it was Hellenistic and in touch with Mediterranean culture. After its extinction, the vigour of Alexandria turns inwards. ”

“ The poor creatures soon discovered their mistake. Their good friend the khedive will never return to Egypt, for England and France will not allow it. He was too sincere a friend of his own people, and too independent in dealing with the shareholders of the Suez canal built during his reign.
Alexandria has a population of two-hundred-fifty thousand. It was founded by Alexander the Great three hundred years before Christ, on account of the great natural advantages of this place as a seaport. At the time of Christ it had about half a million inhabitants. ”

“ This large village was formerly head of the Eastern district of the Western Desert Province, but the Administration is transferring to Burg el Arab. Bedouins come to the train, bigger and wirier than the Egyptians, and more graceful; they wear rough white robes and soft dark red tarbooshes.—There 191is a fine walk from Amrieh to Mex—the best day’s tramp near Alexandria. The path leads north from the station, by the communal gardens, then makes for a ridge where limestone is quarried. View from the top over the western arm of Mariout. ”

“ During the thousand years and more that intervene between the Arab conquest of Egypt and its conquest by Napoleon, the events in the history of Alexandria are geographic rather than political. Neglected by man, the land and the waters altered their positions, and could Alexander the Great have returned he would have failed to recognise the coast. (i) The fundamental change was in the 12th cent., when the Canopic mouth of the Nile silted up. Consequently the fresh water lake of Mariout, being no longer fed by the Nile floods, also silted and ceased to be navigable. ”

“ The cars run hourly or nearly so, but the river ride is more pleasant. If you have been to Alexandria at any time since the century opened, you will recognize the place. Many things change in three score years and fifteen, but Alexandria is not one of them. It is the same yesterday and today. Your hospitable friends at Huntley will meet you on the wharf, and you shall have a charming ride through the Fairfax fair fields for four miles, until you reach the Old Dominion plantation of Judge Mason. ”

“ Henry Cabot Lodge's description of Virginia society in the eighteenth century might aptly be applied to Alexandria: "We must go back to Athens to find another instance of a Society so small in numbers and yet capable of such an outburst of ability and force."
Among the great Virginia names closely associated with Alexandria is that of Lee. Virginia's (and America's) patriot, Arthur Lee, was born at Stratford, in Westmoreland County, on December 20, 1740, and died at his residence, Lansdown, in the old town of Urbanna, Middlesex County, on December 12, 1792. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Many of the trees are large enough to make spars of considerable dimensions.
Alexandria, [15] the principal town on the island, and the residence of the governor, is situated on the eastern side of an extensive bay. It possesses an excellent harbour, being well sheltered by several small islands that lie to the southwest. The eastern entrance, which is the safest, is not above a mile wide, and is defended by a battery or small fort. There is also an entrance to the west; but it is narrow and intricate, and requires a leading wind to pass through. ”

“ Alexandria! the sea, the men, the colossal marble Pharos whose mirror saved men from the sea! Alexandria! the city of the eleven Ptolemies, Physcon, Philometor, Epiphanes, Philadelphos; Alexandria, the climax of all dreams, the diadem of all the glories conquered during three thousand years in Memphis, Thebes, Athens, Corinth, by the chisel, the pen, the compass, and the sword! Still farther away, the Delta, cloven by the seven tongues of Nile, Saïs, Boubastis, Heliopolis ”

“ It surpasses Cologne for smells, Benares for pests, Saratoga for gaming, Paris itself for vice. There is a layer of French “civilization” of the worst kind over the semi-barbarism of Cairo; but still the town is chiefly Oriental. Alexandria, on the other hand, is completely Europeanized, and has a white population of seventy or eighty thousand. The Arabs are kept in a huge village outside the fortifications, and French is the only language spoken in the shops and hotels. Alexandria is a French town. ”

“ Finding that the ancient capitals of the country—Thebes, Sais, and even Memphis itself—occupied positions which were no longer suited to the exigencies of the times, he founded opposite to the island of Pharos, in the township of Eakotis, a city to which he gave his own name. The rapid growth of the prosperity of Alexandria showed how happy the founder had been in the choice of its site: in less than half a century from the date of its foundation, it had eclipsed all the other capitals of the Eastern Mediterranean, and had become the centre of African Hellenism. ”

“ There is nothing beautiful or pleasant in the present Alexandria, but a handsome street of modern houses, where a very active and intelligent number of merchants live upon the miserable remnants of that trade, which made its glory in the first times. ”

“ Alexandria was a cosmopolitan city as well as Rome, hardly inferior to the Italian capital in the number of its inhabitants, far superior to it in stirring commercial spirit, in skill of handicraft, in taste for science and art: in the citizens there was a lively sense of their own national importance, and, if there was no political sentiment, there was at any rate a turbulent spirit, which induced them to indulge in their street riots regularly and heartily. ”

“ The population now is 14,000 as against Alexandria’s 400,000, and it has become wizen and puny through inbreeding. The warehouses and mosques are falling down, the costly private dwellings of the merchants have been gutted, and the sand, advancing from the south and from the west, invades a little farther every year through the palm groves and into the streets. One can wander aimlessly for hours (it is best thus to wander) and can see nothing that is modern, nor anything more exciting than the arrival of the fishing fleet with sardines. ”

“ Since the restoration of tranquillity and the establishment of sound political and economic conditions in the Nile valley, Alexandria has greatly expanded. As the British consular report for 1904 says, “Building . . . for residential and other purposes proceeds with almost feverish rapidity. The cost of living has doubled and the price of land has risen enormously.” On the E. and S.E. a new town of handsome houses, gardens and boulevards has been called into existence, in the arrangement of which the controlling influence of the municipality is evident (see Modern City above) . ”

“ The people of Alexandria have in their manners the simplicity and straight-forwardness of a people in a rural village.—They have the hospitality of their ancesters of Charles II. time, when the Scotch, under Lord Fairfax settled the northern neck of Virginia. The pure morals and pure principles of those primitive times have been handed down unsoiled and uncorrupted to the people who now dwell here. ”

“ A rich cradle, an illustrious country, in the judgment of men! It is natural that thy children should reverence thee like a mother, Alexandria, and I was begotten in thy magnificently adorned breast. But the ascetic despises nature, the mystic scorns appearances, the Christian regards his native land as a place of exile, the monk is not of this earth. I have turned away my heart from loving thee, Alexandria. I hate thee! I hate thee for thy riches, thy science, thy pleasures, and thy beauty. Be accursed, temple of demons! ”

“ For some time Alexandria seemed destined to become an important commercial centre, but the rise of Washington created a rival that soon outstripped it, and since the Civil War the city’s growth has been comparatively slight. At Alexandria in 1755 General Edward Braddock organized his fatal expedition against Fort Duquesne, and here, in April of the same year, the governors of Virginia, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland met (in a house still standing) to determine upon concerted action against the French in America. ”