cations of Alexandria were twice occupied by a fleet and army of
Romans. They were twice expelled by the valor of Amrou, who was recalled
by the domestic peril from the distant wars of Tripoli and Nubia. But
the facility of the attempt, the repetition of the insult, and the
obstinacy of the resistance, provoked him to swear, that if a third
time he drove the infidels into the sea, he would render Alexandria as
accessible on all sides as the house of a prostitute. Faithful to his
promise, he dismantled several parts of the walls and towers; but the
people was spared in the chastisement of the city, and the mosch of
Mercy was erected on the spot where the victorious general had stopped
the fury of his troops.

[Footnote 111: The local description of Alexandria is perfectly
ascertained by the master hand of the first of geographers, (D'Anville,
Memoire sur l'Egypte, p. 52-63;) but we may borrow the eyes of the
modern travellers, more especially of Thevenot, (Voyage au Levant, part
i. p. 381-395,) Pocock, (vol. i. p. 2-13,) and Niebuhr, (Voyage en
Arabie, tom. i. p. 34-43.) Of the two modern rivals, Savary and Volmey,
the one may amuse, the other will instruct.]

[Footnote 112: Both Eutychius (Annal. tom. ii. p. 319) and Elmacin
(Hist. Saracen. p. 28) concur in fixing the taking of Alexandria to
Friday of the new moon of Moharram of the twentieth year of the Hegira,
(December 22, A.D. 640.) In reckoning backwards fourteen months spent
before Alexandria, seven months before Babylon, &c., Amrou might have
invaded Egypt about the end of the year 638; but we are assured that he
entered the country the 12th of Bayni, 6th of June, (Murtadi, Merveilles
de l'Egypte, p. 164. Severus, apud Renaudot, p. 162.) The Saracen, and
afterwards Lewis IX. of France, halted at Pelusium, or Damietta, during
the season of the inundation of the Nile.]

[Footnote 113: Eutych. Annal. tom. ii. p. 316, 319.]

[Footnote 114: Notwithstanding some inconsistencies of Theophanes and
Cedrenus, the accuracy of Pagi (Critica, tom. ii. p. 824) has extracted
from Nicephorus and the Chronicon Orientale the true date of the death
of Heraclius, February 11th, A.D. 641, fifty days after the loss
of Alexandria. A fourth of that time was sufficient to convey the
intelligence.]

Chapter LI: Conquests By The Arabs.--Part VI.

I should deceive the expectation of the reader, if I passed in silence
the fate of the Alexandrian library, as it is described by the