Memphis he notices,
however, the mixture of inhabitants, and the ruin of the palaces. In the
proper Egypt, Ammianus enumerates Memphis among the four cities, maximis
urbibus quibus provincia nitet, (xxii. 16;) and the name of Memphis
appears with distinction in the Roman Itinerary and episcopal lists.]

[Footnote 102: These rare and curious facts, the breadth (2946 feet)
and the bridge of the Nile, are only to be found in the Danish traveller
and the Nubian geographer, (p. 98.)]

[Footnote 103: From the month of April, the Nile begins imperceptibly to
rise; the swell becomes strong and visible in the moon after the summer
solstice, (Plin. Hist. Nat. v. 10,) and is usually proclaimed at Cairo
on St. Peter's day, (June 29.) A register of thirty successive years
marks the greatest height of the waters between July 25 and August
18, (Maillet, Description de l'Egypte, lettre xi. p. 67, &c. Pocock's
Description of the East, vol. i. p. 200. Shaw's Travels, p. 383.)]

[Footnote 104: Murtadi, Merveilles de l'Egypte, 243, 259. He expatiates
on the subject with the zeal and minuteness of a citizen and a bigot,
and his local traditions have a strong air of truth and accuracy.]

[Footnote 105: D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 233.]

[Footnote 106: The position of New and of Old Cairo is well known, and
has been often described. Two writers, who were intimately acquainted
with ancient and modern Egypt, have fixed, after a learned inquiry,
the city of Memphis at Gizeh, directly opposite the Old Cairo, (Sicard,
Nouveaux Memoires des Missions du Levant, tom. vi. p. 5, 6. Shaw's
Observations and Travels, p. 296-304.) Yet we may not disregard the
authority or the arguments of Pocock, (vol. i. p. 25-41,) Niebuhr,
(Voyage, tom. i. p. 77-106,) and above all, of D'Anville, (Description
de l'Egypte, p. 111, 112, 130-149,) who have removed Memphis towards the
village of Mohannah, some miles farther to the south. In their heat, the
disputants have forgot that the ample space of a metropolis covers and
annihilates the far greater part of the controversy.]

Yet the Arabs, after a glorious and profitable enterprise, must have
retreated to the desert, had they not found a powerful alliance in the
heart of the country. The rapid conquest of Alexander was assisted by
the superstition and revolt of the natives: they abhorred their Persian
oppressors, the disciples of the Magi, who had burnt the temples of
Egypt, and feasted with sacrilegiou