LAST week we started talking about the 14th century trav¬els of Ibn Battouta that took him 27 years to accomplish, starting at Tangier in Morocco, extending to different parts of Africa and Asia and reaching as far as China. We por¬trayed his impressions about Egypt in general and Cairo in particular.
This time we are going to recite what he said about Alexandria; the protected port and the well-located city as he described it. It’s filled with mixed splendour because of its location between the east and the west. Alexandria holds all that you can imagine of beautification and fortifi¬cation as well as civil and religious buildings that combine both magnificence and perfection.
The city of Alexandria has four gates: the Sedra gate that leads to the Maghreb countries, Rashid gate which leads to the city of Rashid (Rosetta), the Sea gate and the Green gate which leads to the cemeteries. Alexandria, Ibn Battouta claimed, has had a sea port that he has never seen anything like it anywhere in the whole world.
He visited the famous Alexandria lighthouse and noticed that one of its side walls was falling; the tall building had a square base and a kind of a leading wooden bridge, which was designed to be pulled up to cut the access to the lighthouse when needed.
Astonishingly, he affirmed that inside the lighthouse there were many houses. He estimated the dimensions of the building by 140 stitched hand (which gives about 30 metres) on each side. The lighthouse was surrounded by water from three sides and could be reached by land from one side only. The road connecting the lighthouse to the city, in which the tomb of Alexander the great existed, was few kilometres long.
Another astounding monument marking the city of Alexandria is the marble column (Pompey pillar); Ibn Battollta noticed that this marble column was inside a for¬est of palm trees; he commented that the column was quite higher than the palm trees themselves. One of the incidents he recorded about this column was that one day an archer climbed it with his bow and arrow and the people that gathered could never guess how he was able to do that.
Reading about the travels of Ibn Battouta is very intrigu¬ing; captivating stories and startling historical facts leave you inspired to the bones and dreaming of an adventure of your own.
