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cannot bring myself to believe, with a late writer*, that so cir- 

 cumstantial an account could ever have been forged by that author. 

 It might have descended to him traditionally, and been omitted by 

 Arrian and other biographers of Alexander, as in their opinion not 

 important enough for the page of history -f . 



Difficulties scarcely less discouraging and numerous than those ex- 

 perienced at Tyre attended the reduction of Gaza ; but the genius of 

 Alexander surmounted them all, though in surmounting them he was 

 severely wounded in the shoulder. The same genius displayed the 

 consummate policy peculiar to itself in afterwards constituting that 

 almost impregnable fortress, situated on the extremity of Egypt 

 and Syria, a grand magazine of arms ; at the same time leaving in it 

 a numerous garrison. By these two arduous enterprises, his army 

 being much reduced, he delayed his march into Egypt till he 

 could procure fresh recruits from Greece, and these having at 

 length arrived, he hastened thither, and, in seven days, reached 

 Pelusium. The terror of his arms, added to the rooted detestation 

 of the Egyptians for the Persian tyrants who had mutilated and 

 slain their gods, opened for him an uninterrupted passage to Mem- 

 phis, its capital ; where, in direct opposition to the bigoted policy of 

 the Persians, he offered public and splendid sacrifices, as well to the 

 Egyptian as the Grecian deities. We shall scarcely ever find 

 Alexander entering upon a new conquest, but he navigates the 

 rivers and explores the coasts of the subjugated country. At Mem- 

 phis he embarked on the Nile, and sailed down its stream through 

 the Canopic, or most western mouth, into the ocean. It was the 

 result of an accurate survey of that part of the coast, and of the ad- 

 vantageous situation it afforded for establishing there an emporium for 

 the commerce of the whole world, on the conquest of which he 



* The Baron de St. Croix. t Vide Joseph! Antiq. Judaic, lib. xi. sect. 8. 



