gh the Red-Sea and the mouth of the
Nile, till a way was discovered, a little above two hundred years since,
of sailing to those parts by the Cape of Good Hope. After this, the
Portuguese for some time were masters of this trade; but now it is in a
manner engrossed wholly by the English and Dutch. This short account of
the East-India trade, from Solomon's time, to the present age, is
extracted from Dr. Prideaux.(314)

For the convenience of trade, there was built near Alexandria, in an
island called Pharos, a tower which bore the same name.(315) At the top of
this tower was kept a fire, to light such ships as sailed by night near
those dangerous coasts, which were full of sands and shelves, from whence
all other towers, designed for the same use, have derived their name, as,
Pharo di Messina, &c. The famous architect Sostratus built it by order of
Ptolemy Philadelphus, who expended eight hundred talents upon it.(316) It
was reckoned one of the seven wonders of the world. Some, through a
mistake, have commended that prince, for permitting the architect to put
his name in the inscription, which was fixed on the tower, instead of his
own.(317) It was very short and plain, according to the manner of the
ancients. _Sostratus Cnidius Dexiphanis F. Diis Servatoribus pro
navigantibus_: _i.e._ Sostratus the Cnidian, son of Dexiphanes, to the
protecting deities, for the use of sea-faring people. But certainly
Ptolemy must have very much undervalued that kind of immortality which
princes are generally so fond of, to suffer, that his name should not be
so much as mentioned in the inscription of an edifice so capable of
immortalizing him. What we read in Lucian concerning this matter, deprives
Ptolemy of a modesty, which indeed would be very ill placed here.(318)
This author informs us that Sostratus, to engross in after-times the whole
glory of that noble structure to himself, caused the inscription with his
own name to be carved in the marble, which he afterwards covered with
lime, and thereon put the king's name. The lime soon mouldered away; and
by that means, instead of procuring the architect the honour with which he
had flattered himself, served only to discover to future ages his mean
fraud and ridiculous vanity.

Riches failed not to bring into this city, as they usually do in all
places, luxury and licentiousness; so that the Alexandrian voluptuousness
became a proverb.(319) In this city arts and sciences were also
indust