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he adds, " Such was this Queen of Cities and Metropolis 

 of Africa, but who now hath nothing left her but ruines, 

 and those ill witnesses of her perished beauties, declaring 

 rather that towns as well as men have their ages and 

 destinies." The rude hand of the fanatical and barbarous 

 Mussulman had already done much in the Avork of des- 

 truction, but the discovery of the passage to India round 

 the Cape of Good Hope, by Vasco de Gama, in 1497, 

 completely destroyed the commercial importance of Alex- 

 andria, and it remained little more than a mass of ruins 

 until the end of the last, or beginning of the present 

 century, when the gigantic intellect of Napoleon appre- 

 ciated its immense importance as the Key of the East. 

 At the commencement of the present centmy Alexandria 

 nimibered as inhabitants not more than six thousand 

 souls. They now amount to about eighty thousand, and 

 the progress of recent events would seem to indicate a 

 steadily progressive increase. 



In 1845 and 1846 Sir William Pym visited professionally 

 the different lazarettos of the Mediterranean, Adriatic, and 

 Levant, and in the correspondence respecting the Quaran- 

 tine Laws presented to Parliament, in 1846, we find him 

 stating that, " The towns of Alexandria and Cairo are 

 remarkably clean, and Alexandria in particular is rapidly 

 improving. Orders have been issued for widening streets, 

 pulling down houses, &c." " The health regulations are 

 not confined to the town but extend over all lower Egypt, 

 and particular attention is paid to the Delta, medical men 

 being stationed in every district, &c." Doubtless Mo- 

 hammed Ali intended that these things should be thus 

 as sketched by Sir William, more, I conceive, from the 

 description of others than from his own observations; 

 but this, like many others of the great enterprises of 

 that wonderful man, has proved a miserable failure. It 

 is, indeed, too true, as remarked by a late traveller that. 



