long the Tigris to Persepolis.
The Persian king fled for his life over the great Salt Desert, from the
columns and statues of that city which had lain in ruins since the night
of the riotous banquet of Alexander. One division of the Arabian army
forced the Persian monarch over the Oxus. He was assassinated by the
Turks. His son was driven into China, and became a captain in the
Chinese emperor's guards. The country beyond the Oxus was reduced.
It paid a tribute of two million pieces of gold. While the emperor
at Peking was demanding the friendship of the khalif at Medina, the
standard of the Prophet was displayed on the banks of the Indus.

Among the generals who had greatly distinguished themselves in the
Syrian wars was Amrou, destined to be the conqueror of Egypt; for the
khalifs, not content with their victories on the North and East, now
turned their eyes to the West, and prepared for the annexation of
Africa. As in the former cases, so in this, sectarian treason assisted
them. The Saracen army was hailed as the deliverer of the Jacobite
Church; the Monophysite Christians of Egypt, that is, they who, in the
language of the Athanasian Creed, confounded the substance of the
Son, proclaimed, through their leader, Mokaukas, that they desired no
communion with the Greeks, either in this world or the next, that they
abjured forever the Byzantine tyrant and his synod of Chalcedon. They
hastened to pay tribute to the khalif, to repair the roads and bridges,
and to supply provisions and intelligence to the invading army.

FALL OF ALEXANDRIA. Memphis, one of the old Pharaonic capitals, soon
fell, and Alexandria was invested. The open sea behind gave opportunity
to Heraclius to reenforce the garrison continually. On his part, Omar,
who was now khalif sent to the succor of the besieging army the veteran
troops of Syria. There were many assaults and many sallies. In one Amrou
himself was taken prisoner by the besieged, but, through the dexterity
of a slave, made his escape. After a siege of fourteen months, and a
loss of twenty-three thousand men, the Saracens captured the city. In
his dispatch to the Khalif, Amrou enumerated the splendors of the great
city of the West "its four thousand palaces, four thousand baths, four
hundred theatres, twelve thousand shops for the sale of vegetable food,
and forty thousand tributary Jews."

So fell the second great city of Christendom--the fate of Jerusalem had
fallen on Alexandria, the