and transport a considerable quantity of artillery from Alexandria
to Geeza.
For near three hundred years, during the reigns of the Ptolemies,
Alexandria continued to f lo u r is h .I t’s founder having destroyed
Tyre, the commerce of the whole world was in its hands:
and while.it possessed this inexhaustible source of Wealth, it could
boast such establishments for the promotion of science, as never
existed in any other place, even Athens itself not excepted. At
length the race of. the Ptolemies, eight of whom reigned two
hundred and seventy years, began to decline, and Rome laid it’s
grasping hand upon Egypt. Alexandria, which about this time
had three hundred thousand freemen on it’s rolls, , soon after fell
into decay, and experienced various vicissitudes. I t’s commercial
advantages, however, enabled it in great measure to recover from
every fresh calamity it endured, till about the middle of the sixth
century it was taken by storm, by Amrou Ebn al Aas, the general
of Omar. Of it’s population at this period we may form an idea
from what is said by Amrou, according to whom, it then contained
four thousand palaces, four thousand baths, twelve thousand dealers
in fresh'oil, twelve thousand gardeners, forty thousand jews paying
tribute, and four hundred comedians. Arabs, fatimites, curdes,
mamalukes, and turks, now annoying Egypt in succession, Alexandria
never again recovered it’s ancient splendour: though it was
preserved from destruction, even in the hands of the most barbarous
nations, in consequence of the advantages accruing from the East
India trade to the masters of Egypt, whoever they might be, till
the discovery of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope sealed
it’s ruin.