THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 13 



imagined it was an old obelilk, hewn to that round form. 

 It is nine feet diameter; and were it but 80 feet high, it 

 would require a. prodigious obelifk indeed, that could ad- 

 mit to be hewn to this circumference for fuch a length, fo 

 as perfectly to efface the hieroglyphics that mull have been 

 very deeply cut in the four faces of it. 



The tomb of Alexander has been talked of as one of the 

 antiquities of this city. Marmol * fays he faw it in the year: 

 1546. It was, according to him, a fmall houfe, in form of 

 a chapel, in the middle of the city, near the church of St. 

 Mark, and was called Efcander. 



The thing itfelf is not probable, for all thofe that made 

 themfelves mailers of Alexandria, in the earliefl times, had^ 

 too much refpect for Alexander, to have reduced his tomb 

 to fo obfcure a flate. It would have been fpared even by. 

 the Saracens ; for Mahomet fpeaks of Alexander with great 

 refpecl, both as a king and a propter. The body was pre- 

 ferred in a glafs coffin, in f Strabo's time, having been rob- 

 bed of the golden one in which it was firfl depofited, 



The Greeks, for the moil part, are better inilrucled in the 

 hiflory of thefe places than the Cophts, Turks, or Ghrifli- 

 ans ; and, after the Greeks, the jews. 



As I was perfectly difguifed, having for many years worn 

 the drefs of the Arabs, I was under no conflraint, but walked, 

 through the town in all directions, accompanied by any of. 



thofe : 



* Marmol, lib. xi. cap. 14. p. 276. torn. 3, f Stobo, lib. xvii. p. 922.. 



