all that had been in the ancient world, or that was at the time - most fitting place therefore to be

the capital of Jewish Hellenism.

As its name indicates, the city was founded by Alexander the Great. It was built in the form of

an open fan, or rather, of the outspread cloak of a Macedonian horseman. Altogether, it

measured (16,360 paces) 3,160 paces more than Rome; but its houses were neither so

crowded nor so many-storied. It had been a large city when Rome was still inconsiderable, and

to the last held the second place in the Empire. One of the five quarters into which the city was

divided, and which were named according to the first letters of the alphabet, was wholly

covered by the royal palaces, with their gardens, and similar buildings, including the royal

mausoleum, where the body of Alexander the Great, preserved in honey, was kept in a glass

coffin. But these, and its three miles of colonnades along the principal highway, were only some

of the magnificent architectural adornments of a city full of palaces. The population amounted,

probably, to nearly a million, drawn from the East and West by trade, the attractions of wealth,

the facilities for study, or the amusements of a singularly frivolous city. A strange mixture of

elements among the people, combining the quickness and versatility of the Greek with the

gravity, the conservatism, the dream-grandeur, and the luxury of the Eastern.

Three worlds met in Alexandria: Europe, Asia, and Africa; and brought to it, or fetched from it,

their treasures. Above all, it was a commercial city, furnished with an excellent harbour - or

rather with five harbours. A special fleet carried, as tribute, from Alexandria to Italy, two-tenths

of the corn produce of Egypt, which sufficed to feed the capital for four months of the year. A

magnificent fleet it was, from the light quick sailer to those immense corn-ships which hoisted a

special flag, and whose early arrival was awaited at Puteoli3 with more eagerness than that of

any modern ocean-steamer.4 The commerce of India was in the hands of the Alexandrian

shippers.5 Since the days of the Ptolemies the Indian trade alone had increased sixfold.6 Nor

was the native industry inconsiderable. Linen goods, to suit the tastes or costumes of all

countries; woolen stuffs of every hue, some curiously wrought with figures, and even scenes;

glass of every shade and in every shape; paper from the thinnest sheet to the coarsest packing

paper; essences, perfumeries - such were the native products. However idly or luxuriously

inclined, still every one seemed busy, in a city where (as the Emperor Hadrian expressed it)

`money was the people's god;' and every one seemed well-to-do in his own way, from the waif

in the streets, who with little trouble to himself could pick up sufficient to go to the restaurant

and enjoy a comfortable dinner of fresh or smoked fish with garlic, and his pudding, washed

down with the favourite Egyptian barley beer, up to the millionaire banker, who owned a palace

in the city and a villa by the canal that connected Alexandria with Canobus. What a jostling

crowd of all nations in the streets, in the market (where, according to the joke of a

contemporary, anything might be got except snow), or by the harbours; what cool shades,

delicious retreats, vast halls, magnificent libraries, where the savants of Alexandria assembled

and taught every conceivable branch of learning, and its far-famed physicians prescribed for the

poor consumptive patients sent thither from all parts of Italy! What bustle and noise among that

ever excitable, chatty conceited, vain, pleasure-loving multitude, whose highest enjoyment was