and money, from all countries of the
world. Its destruction was a wanton act; but its perpetrator
showed, like the loving spouse 'of another noted personage, that
'though on pleasure he was bent, he had a frugal mind.' He did not
consume the books on their shelves, or in whatever repositories
contained them, although doubtless they would have made a beautiful
blaze. He utilized them as fuel for heating the baths of the city;
and we are told that they sufficed to heat the water for four
thousand such baths for six months. With an average share of
persuasibility, when it is not against our will to be convinced, we
stagger at the statement that seven hundred and thirty thousand
furnaces could have been supplied with fuel from the contents of
even that magnificent palace, and therefore venture to suggest that
the papyri and palm-leaf manuscripts were used rather as
fire-lighters than as fuel. Even this is a rather large order; but
undoubtedly the collection was enormous. The reason tradition
ascribes to Omar for this act has never, so far as we know, been
disputed till quite recently, when 'historical criticism' has taken
it in hand. 'The contents of these books are either in accordance
with the teaching of the _Koran_ or they are opposed to it. If in
accord, then they are useless, since the _Koran_ itself is
sufficient; and if in opposition, they are pernicious and must be
destroyed.'

"But the piecemeal destruction of many hundreds of thousands of
manuscripts was no trifling task, even for a despotic caliph. A few
escaped their doom; how, we do not know. Perhaps some officer
annexed for himself some manuscript that struck him as specially
beautiful; or perhaps some stoker at some bath rejected one as slow
of ignition. At all events a few--probably very few--were
preserved, and among them must have been copies of the writings of
Euclid and Ptolemy, the _Elements_ of the one, the _Almagest_ of
the other."

A proof of the religious infatuation, or the blind confidence in
destiny, which hurried the Moslem commanders of those days into the most
extravagant enterprises, is furnished in the invasion of the once proud
empire of the Pharaohs, the mighty, the mysterious Egypt, with an army
of merely five thousand men. The caliph Omar himself, though he had
suggested this expedi