Cairo, enumerates 2696.]

[Footnote 137: See Maillet, (Description de l'Egypte, p. 28,) who seems
to argue with candor and judgment. I am much better satisfied with the
observations than with the reading of the French consul. He was ignorant
of Greek and Latin literature, and his fancy is too much delighted
with the fictions of the Arabs. Their best knowledge is collected by
Abulfeda, (Descript. Aegypt. Arab. et Lat. a Joh. David Michaelis,
Gottingae, in 4to., 1776;) and in two recent voyages into Egypt, we
are amused by Savary, and instructed by Volney. I wish the latter could
travel over the globe.]

IV. The conquest of Africa, from the Nile to the Atlantic Ocean, [138]
was first attempted by the arms of the caliph Othman.

The pious design was approved by the companions of Mahomet and the
chiefs of the tribes; and twenty thousand Arabs marched from Medina,
with the gifts and the blessing of the commander of the faithful.
They were joined in the camp of Memphis by twenty thousand of their
countrymen; and the conduct of the war was intrusted to Abdallah, [139]
the son of Said and the foster-brother of the caliph, who had lately
supplanted the conqueror and lieutenant of Egypt. Yet the favor of the
prince, and the merit of his favorite, could not obliterate the guilt of
his apostasy. The early conversion of Abdallah, and his skilful pen, had
recommended him to the important office of transcribing the sheets of
the Koran: he betrayed his trust, corrupted the text, derided the errors
which he had made, and fled to Mecca to escape the justice, and expose
the ignorance, of the apostle. After the conquest of Mecca, he fell
prostrate at the feet of Mahomet; his tears, and the entreaties of
Othman, extorted a reluctant pardon; out the prophet declared that he
had so long hesitated, to allow time for some zealous disciple to avenge
his injury in the blood of the apostate. With apparent fidelity and
effective merit, he served the religion which it was no longer his
interest to desert: his birth and talents gave him an honorable rank
among the Koreish; and, in a nation of cavalry, Abdallah was renowned as
the boldest and most dexterous horseman of Arabia. At the head of forty
thousand Moslems, he advanced from Egypt into the unknown countries of
the West. The sands of Barca might be impervious to a Roman legion but
the Arabs were attended by their faithful camels; and the natives of
the desert beheld without terror the familia