ith the greatness of the enterprise, he condemned his own
rashness, and listened to his timid companions. The pride and the
greatness of Pharaoh were familiar to the readers of the Koran; and a
tenfold repetition of prodigies had been scarcely sufficient to effect,
not the victory, but the flight, of six hundred thousand of the
children of Israel: the cities of Egypt were many and populous; their
architecture was strong and solid; the Nile, with its numerous branches,
was alone an insuperable barrier; and the granary of the Imperial city
would be obstinately defended by the Roman powers. In this perplexity,
the commander of the faithful resigned himself to the decision of
chance, or, in his opinion, of Providence. At the head of only four
thousand Arabs, the intrepid Amrou had marched away from his station of
Gaza when he was overtaken by the messenger of Omar. "If you are still
in Syria," said the ambiguous mandate, "retreat without delay; but if,
at the receipt of this epistle, you have already reached the frontiers
of Egypt, advance with confidence, and depend on the succor of God and
of your brethren." The experience, perhaps the secret intelligence,
of Amrou had taught him to suspect the mutability of courts; and he
continued his march till his tents were unquestionably pitched on
Egyptian ground. He there assembled his officers, broke the seal,
perused the epistle, gravely inquired the name and situation of the
place, and declared his ready obedience to the commands of the caliph.
After a siege of thirty days, he took possession of Farmah or Pelusium;
and that key of Egypt, as it has been justly named, unlocked the
entrance of the country as far as the ruins of Heliopolis and the
neighborhood of the modern Cairo.

[Footnote 100: Al Wakidi had likewise composed a separate history of
the conquest of Egypt, which Mr. Ockley could never procure; and his own
inquiries (vol. i. 344-362) have added very little to the original text
of Eutychius, (Annal. tom. ii. p. 296-323, vers. Pocock,) the Melchite
patriarch of Alexandria, who lived three hundred years after the
revolution.]

On the Western side of the Nile, at a small distance to the east of the
Pyramids, at a small distance to the south of the Delta, Memphis, one
hundred and fifty furlongs in circumference, displayed the magnificence
of ancient kings. Under the reign of the Ptolemies and Caesars, the
seat of government was removed to the sea-coast; the ancient capit