All the above chambers form part of a single scheme. We now return to the Rotunda (C), and enter, through a breach in the rock, an entirely distinct set of tombs. They are lighted by a square Well (K) and were reached by a separate staircase now ruinous. The Hall (L) is fancifully called the Hall of Caracalla because that emperor massacred many Alexandrian youths whom he had summoned to a review, and because many bones of men and horses have been found intermingled on its floors; it is lined with tomb cavities on the usual plan.—The Gallery (M) contains rather a charming tomb: it was once covered with white stucco and delicately painted. In the niche above the sarcophagus are Isis and her sister Nephtys, spreading their wings over the mummy of Osiris. More figures on the lateral walls. Above, on the inner wall, the soul as a bird. Above the entrance, the Sun and golden Vase on either side of which is a sphinx with her paw on a wheel.
We now ascend the staircase (A). View of Mariout. Those who are not tired of empty tombs will find plenty more to the right, down a stairway cut in the rock.
Immediately below Kom es Chogafa flows the _Mahmoudieh Canal_, made by Mohammed Ali (for the circumstances _see_ p. 91). There is a road along it which leads, right, into the region of cotton warehouses. (Section VI).—To the left one can walk or drive all the way to Nouzha (Section IV). The route is partly pleasant partly not. It crosses, at Moharrem Bey, the Farkha Canal, which leaves the Mahmoudieh Canal at right angles and which went all the way to the sea.—Further on, there is a shady tract called the “Champs Elysées” it resembles, neither for good or evil, its Parisian original.
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ROUTE:—Take Nouzha Tram (green trefoil) at the lower end of the Boulevard Ramleh, just off the Square. The Rond Point Tram (white star) passes through the Square, but does not go further than the Water Works—about half-way to Nouzha.
CHIEF POINTS OF INTEREST:—Municipal Gardens; Nouzha and Antoniadis Gardens.
For the Boulevard Ramleh _see_ Section V. Having traversed it, the tram bears to the right and passes the Alhambra Theatre, the only one in the town—not a bad building.—Just beyond the Theatre a road leads left, to the Cathedral of the _Coptic Catholic Patriarchate_, (p. 212) or Church of the Resurrection. The building is not remarkable, but of interest to all who would explore the ecclesiastical ramifications of Alexandria. It was dedicated in 1902 by the Patriarch Cyril II and endowed by the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria, as an inscription by the entrance (shortly to be removed) states; the alternative date—1618—reckons by the Coptic Calendar, which begins not with the birth of Christ but with the persecutions of the 3rd cent. (p. 47). The facade of the church imitates that of St. John Lateran, Rome. Beyond the church are the British Consulate and the Egyptian Government Hospital (Section V).