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copy of the Bible to Jerusalem, and requested that a number of learned men or rabbis would proceed to Egypt, and translate it into the Greek language, with an assurance that they would be liberally rewarded. Eleazar was then high priest, and the messengers, who carried with them many rich presents for the Temple, were received with great honour at Jerusalem. They received a copy of the Jewish Law, and six elders were selected from each of the Twelve Tribes to accompany them, in all seventy-two. When they arrived at Alexandria, Ptolemy gave them an audience, and made a trial of their wisdom by proposing seventy-two questions to each of them. Approving of their answers, he gave to each elder three talents, and assigned to them apartments in the islet of Pharos, to complete the undertaking. finished their work in seventy-two days, and presented it to the king, who rewarded their industry by a farther present of two talents of gold, three rich garments, and a cup of gold, and sent them safely back to Jerusalem. This tradition was believed until St Jerome's time, with the farther addition, that the seventy-two translators were inspired, because it was pretended that though they had all been shut up in separate apartments, and without any communication with each other, they were found to agree to a letter. Such is the tradition respecting the Septuagint version, or the LXX., as it is commonly printed, from the number of translators. Dr Hody, a learned divine of the Church of England, who profoundly studied the origin of the Greek version, has successfully refuted this tradition. We have already mentioned the prodigious numbers of Jews who dwelt in Alexandria, almost from the time of its foundation by Alexander the Great. They had a synagogue in their quarter of the city, built

Dr

lation was done by themselves. Hody has, however, proved that the Septuagint version, which it is pretended was done by order of Ptolemy Philadelphus, by the seventy-two elders sent from Jerusalem for that purpose, in the Pharos of Alexandria, was actually made by the Alexandrian Jews themselves for their own use, and of thousands of their countrymen then resident in Egypt, who, living among the Greeks, generally used the Greek language. Dr Hody has also proved that the whole Bible was not translated at once, but at different times; the Pentateuch, or Five Books of Moses, first, about 285 years before the Christian era; and that only the Pentateuch was read in the synagogues till about 170 years before our Saviour's time, when the Jews were prohibited by Antiochus Epiphanes from reciting any part of their Law. That learned writer has also proved that, soon after this prohibition, translations of Isaiah and the other prophetical books were made into Greek for the use of the Alexandrian and other synagogues; and that the remaining books of the Old Testament were afterwards translated by various persons, and with different degrees of care and assiduity.

The present state of Alexandria, or Scanderia, as it is called by the Turks, is described as a scene of magnificent ruin and desolation. For the space of two leagues, the remains of pilasters, capitals, obelisks, and immense masses of shattered columns, and monuments of ancient art, every where meet the eye as memorials of departed greatness. The splendid Pharos, or light-house, has been long demolished, and on its site an irregular square building in a castellated form is erected, out of which rises a clumsy tower, which serves as a lighthouse for the entrance of the port, on which the standard of the Crescent proudly waves. This castellated building, the whole of which is as destitute of strength as it is of ornament, is called Farillon, evidently a corruption of its ancient name. The causeway which

joined the island to the continent has also been broken down, and its place is supplied by a strong bridge of several arches. The modern city stands on a kind of peninsula between two ports, Eunostos, or the Safe Return, now called the Old Port, and the New Port. The port Eunostos, or the Old Port, is the best, but, owing to the exclusive policy of the government, before it was wrested by the Pacha of Egypt from the Sultan, the Turks enjoyed the sole pri vilege of landing and anchoring there; while the New Port was the only harbour for Europeans-a place so filled up with sand, that vessels were liable to bilge in stormy weather, and the bottom being rocky, the cables often parted, by which the ships were dashed against each other. Many fatal instances of such disasters have occurred, while the Turks, with an obstinacy peculiar to them, not withstanding the mercantile advantages which they must have derived, would never improve the place. There are no public buildings of any consequence in modern Alexandria. The city consists of narrow, dirty, and awkwardly disposed streets, without pavement and without police, presenting an appearance of halfruined houses and rubbish, mixed with fragments of the magnificent edifices by which it was once adorned. The houses are all flat-roofed, like those of the other cities in the Levant, in the form of terraces. There are no windows in the houses, and the apertures which supply their places are almost entirely obstruct ed by projecting wooden, lattices of various forms, so closely constructed that scarcely any light is admitted, and thus the houses have more the appearance of prisons than of private dwellings. There are several mosques for the Mahometans, some Greek and Latin churches, and a Roman Catholic convent. Its population appears to have been remarkably fluctuating, varying from 5000 to 20,000 inhabitants. When Mr Madden visited the city in 1829, he estimated the population at 16,000, of whom he rates 9000 Arabs, 2000 Greeks, 2000. Franks

or Europeans, and the rest Jews, Copts, &c. Here Turks, Arabians, Barbaresques, Copts, Christians of Syria, and Jews, constitute the motley population, all jealous of, and all hostile to, each other, exhibiting a singular mixture of habits, customs, and manners. The commerce of Alexandria is, however, at present very considerable, and under an enlightened and active government, the city might yet become of commercial importance, especially when we consider the rapid approaches which Egypt is now making towards political influence and civilization, since it was wrested from the government of the Sultan by Mehemet Ali, its pacha or sovereign. There are British and French consuls at Alexandria, and from nine to twelve very considerable mercantile houses established in the city belong to the British alone. The great staple commodity of exportation to this country is cotton, the extensive demand for which has been favourable to the city. There are numerous Jewish merchants also in Alexandria, who, although heavier taxed by the Egyptian government than others, on account of their religious principles, often contrive by economy to undersell Europeans in the market. When Alex← andria was under the sway of the Turks, those foreigners who had no consuls in the city were obliged to pay tribute to the Sultan. The language commonly spoken is the Arabic, but most of the Alexandrians, especially those engaged in commerce, speak Italian. The Moresco, or Lingua-Franca, a compound of bad Itadian, French, and Arabic, is also spoken.

The country or the coast about Alexandria lies so low, that it is hardly perceived by mariners till very near. This, among other circumstances, occasioned the erection of the famous lighthouse of Pharos. The environs of the city are without interest, sandy, flat, and sterile, without trees, save some rows of palm trees which grow on the old banks of the canal, and the plant which yields the kali; but the whole neighbourhood is without houses. The island of Anti

Rhodes, which contained a palace and a theatre, is now in the middle of the town, and is only known by its surface being covered with ruins. The harbour Kibotos is choked up, and the canal which conveyed the water of Lake Mareotis has entirely disappeared; even that Lake is now filled with dry sand, through the negligence of the Turks in not preserving the canals for conveying the water of the Nile. The country round Alexandria, in short, is entirely destitute of water. This essential commodity is conveyed to the city by a canal from the Nile twelve leagues distant, called the canal or kalidj of Faoue, the only canal at present in Alexandria, without which the citizens could not exist, for it has not a single spring or well of fresh water, and its soil appears to be long to the deserts of Africa. This canal conveys the water of the Nile at the period of the Inundation, and fills the vaults or reservoirs dug under the ancient city, which constitutes the supply until the following year. Even this canal, so essential to the health and welfare of the city, has been shamefully allowed by the indolent Turks to be filled with mud and sand. In former times, and even under the dominion of the Arabs, the canal was navigable throughout the year, and was the medium of conveying great quantities of merchandize; its banks were adorned with vineyards and country houses; but it has now no water till the end of August; the adjoining fields, once well cultivated, are deserted; the gardens of the Ptolemys, the groves, and shady walks, which surrounded the ancient city, have disappeared, and a few scattered sycamores, fig trees, and dates, memorials of former exuberance, are all that remain.

The antiquities of Alexandria are valuable, interesting, and striking. Some parts of the old walls of the ancient city are yet seen, and are said to exhibit fine specimens of masonry. The reservoirs of the citizens, vaulted with peculiar art, and which extend under the whole city, are now almost entire, after the lapse of 2000 years. A few porphyry pillars connected

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with the palace of Cæsar remain; and the front, which is described as extremely beautiful, is entire. The palace of Cleo. patra has disappeared; it was built on the walls facing the fort. Towards the east part of its site were two obelisks, commonly called Cleopatra's Needles, one of which is entire and still remains, mea> suring seven feet at the base, and sixtyseven feet in height, composed of one stone, called Thebaic stone, which consists of red granite, and is covered with hieroglyphics cut to the depth of two inches into the stone. The other, which is exactly the same as the one entire, long lay on the sand, broken and defaced. It is now in the British Museum. wards the ancient Gate of Rosetta, are five marble columns on the place formerly occupied by the porticoes of the Gymnasium; the rest of the colonnade was destroyed by the barbarism of the Turks. The stupendous column called Pompey's Pillar is half a league distant to the south of the city, and is visible from almost every part of Alexandria and its neighbourhood; it towers above the city, and serves as a signal for vessels. As it is approached, it excites feelings of awe and astonishment, blended with unbounded admiration at the beauty and simplicity of the workmanship. This monumental pillar is composed of red granite, but the object of it, and the person to whose memory it was erected, have occasioned considerable disputes among travellers. Its capital, which is of the Corinthian order, with palm leaves, but not indented, is nine feet high; the shaft, and the upper member of the base, are of one piece, nearly ninety feet long, and nine in diameter; the base is a square of about fifteen feet on each side. This immense block of marble is described as resting on two layers of stone bound together with lead, which, however, has not prevented the Arabs from forcing out several of them in search of imaginary treasure. The whole column is said to be 117 feet high, although the most careful estimates do not make it exceed 95 feet. It is admirably polished, and is only partially

shivered on the eastern side. Towards the end of the 18th century, some English sailors in a frolic contrived to ascend to the top of this extraordinary and hitherto inaccessible monument of antiquity, which they accomplished by ingeniously availing themselves of the movements of a paper kite, by means of which they succeeded in fastening a rope to the summit, and achieved this great exploit, emptying a bowl of punch on the top of the column, without accident of any kind. They found a foot and ancle on the top of the column, the only remains of a gigantic statue by which it had been originally surmounted. We are informed, however, by recent travellers, that the ascent to the top of Pompey's Pillar has since been rendered in some measure accessible, and Mr Madden mentions an English lady who breakfasted and wrote a letter on its summit. About seventy paces from the Pillar is the Canal of the Nile, dug by the ancient inhabitants to convey water to the cisterns of the city. It has been recently repaired at considerable labour and expense; but unfortunately, by the ignorance of the Italian engineers employed for the purpose, it is to a great extent choked up by the fresh influxes of mud from the Nile, and is chiefly navigable at the periodical inundations of that river. On the top of a hill near it is a tower, in which a sentinel is placed to give notice by signal of all ships approaching the port. From this hill there is a pleasant prospect of the wide-spread Mediterranean, of the city, and of the adjacent country. "On the sea-coast," says a traveller, "there is a large basin, cut out of the rock which forms the shore, having on its sides two beautiful saloons drawn out by the chisel, with benches across them. A canal of a zig-zag form, for the purpose of stopping the progress of the sand by its different 'windings, conveys the tide into these saloons, and renders the water as pure and transparent as crystal. The water is made to rise a little above the waist when a person is seated on the stone bench, and the feet rest on a fine sand.

The waves of the sea dash against the rock, and foam in the canal. The swell enters, raises you up, and leaves you; and thus alternately entering and retiring, furnishes a constant supply of fresh water, and a coolness which is grateful and delicious under a burning sky. This place is popularly called the Bath of Cleopatra, and some ruins indicate that it was formerly ornamented." Dr Clarke, in noticing this artificial reservoir, says, that "if it ever was intended for a bath, it was in all probability a place where they washed the bodies of the dead before they were embalmed." About a mile distant, south-west of the city, are situated the Crypta or Catacombs, noticed by Strabo under the name of Necropolis, the ancient burial-place of Alexandria. "Nature," says the Baron Du Tott, "not having furnished this part of Egypt with a ridge of rocks like that which runs parallel with the Nile above Delta, the ancient inhabitants of Alexandria could only have an imitation by digging into a bed of solid rock, and thus they formed a Necropolis, or City of the Dead. The excavation is from thirty to forty feet wide, two hundred long, and twenty-five deep, and is terminated by gentle declivities at each end. The two sides, cut perpendicularly, contain several openings, about ten or twelve feet in width and height, hollowed horizontally, and which form by their different branches subterranean streets. One of these, which curiosity has disencumbered from the ruins and the sands that render the entrance of others difficult or impossible, contains no mummies, but only the places they occupied. The order in which they were ranged is still to be seen. Niches, twenty inches square, sunk six feet horizontally, narrowed at the bottom, and separated from each other by partitions in the rock, seven or eight inches thick, divided into checkers the two walls of this subterraneous vault. It is natural to suppose, from this disposition, that each mummy was introduced with the feet foremost into the cell intended for its reception; and that

new streets were opened in proportion as the dead inhabitants of Necropolis increased." Dr Clarke, who personally inspected the Necropolis, says, "Among all the antiquities of this once celebrated city, which after the destruction of Carthage ranked next to Rome in magnitude and population, the Cryptæ of Necropolis are the least known, and the most wonderful.—Enough remains in the severe simplicity of these structures, and in the few Egyptian symbols found within them, to show that they are of earlier antiquity. than the foundation of Alexandria by the Macedonians, even if we had not the most decisive evidence to prove that the regal sepulchres of the Alexandrian monarchs were within the city. As repositories of the dead, they were consequently places of worship, whose dark and subterraneous caverns were aptly suited to the ideas entertained of Hades, the invisible abode of departed spirits.-Nothing so marvellous (as the Crypta of Alexandria) ever fell within our observation; but in Upper Egypt, perhaps, works of a similar nature may have been found. The Crypta of Jerusalem, Tortosa, Jebilee, Laodicea, and Telmessus, are excavations of the same kind, but far less extensive. They enable us, however, to trace the connection which anciently existed in the sepulchral customs of all the nations bordering on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, from the shores of Carthage and of Cyrene, to Egypt, to Palestine, to Phoenicia, and to Asia Minor. An inclination common to man in every period of his history, but particularly in the patriarchal ages, of being 'finally gathered unto his fathers,' may explain the prodigious labour bestowed in the construction of these primeval sepulchres.-The Alexandrian guides to the Catacombs will not be persuaded to enter them without using the precaution of a clue of thread, in order to secure their retreat. We were therefore provided with a ball of twine to answer this purpose, and also with a quantity of wax tapers to light us in our passage through these dark chambers.-The original en

trance to them is now closed, and is externally concealed from observation. The only place whereby admittance to the interior is practicable may be found facing the sea, near an angle towards the north; it is a small aperture made through the soft and sandy rock, either by burrowing animals, or by men for the purpose of ransacking the cemetery. This aperture is barely large enough to admit a person upon his hands and knees. Here it is not unusual to encounter jackalls, escaping from the interior when alarmed by any person approaching; on this account the guides recommend the practice of discharging a gun or pistol, to prevent any sally of this kind. Having passed this aperture with lighted tapers, we arrived by a gradual descent in a square chamber, almost filled with earth; to the left and right of this are smaller apartments chiselled in the rock; each of these contains on either side of it, except that of the entrance, a soros for the reception of a mummy; but, owing to the accumulation of sand in all of them, this part of the Catacombs cannot be examined without great difficulty. Leaving the first chamber, we found a second of still larger dimensions, having four cryptæ. with soroi, two on either side, and a fifth at the extremity towards the south-east. From hence, penetrating towards the west, we passed through another forced aperture, which conducted us into a square chamber, without any receptacles for dead bodies; thence, pursuing a south-western course, we persevered in effecting a passage over heaps of sand, from one chamber to another, admiring every where the same extraordinary effects of labour and ingenuity, until we found ourselves bewildered with so many passages, that our clue of thread became of more importance than we at first believed it would prove to be. At last we reached the stately antichamber of the principal sepulchre, which had every appearance of being intended for a regal repository. It was of a circular form, surmounted by a beautiful dome, hewn out of the rock with exquisite perfection, and the purest sim