12^ DESCRIPTIONS OF EGYPT. 
veloped in the same profound darkness that in- 
volves the monuments of the Thebaid, and which 
was reckoned one of the seven vv^onders of the 
world, may be seen when the sea is calm immers- 
|ed in the waters.* The Pharos has been repeat- 
edly destroyed and repaired, and its restorers 
have often aspired to the glory of the original 
founders. In the year 1320 it was overturned by 
an earthquake, and its place has been supplied by 
a square tower, equally devoid of ornament and 
elegance. Alexandria exhibits no vestiges of its 
former magnificence, except the ruins which sur- 
round it. An extensive plain, furrowed with 
trenches, pierced with wells, and divided by 
mouldering walls, is entirely covered with an- 
cient columns, mutilated statues and capitals, 
and fragments of decayed battlements, which lie 
strewed amid modern tombs, and shaded by scat- 
tered nopals and palms. These ruins, which pro- 
bably occupy a much greater space than the city 
of Alexandria at any particular period of its most 
flourishing state, are of very remote antiquity, 
and greatly anterior to Alexander, as the hiero- 
glyphics, with which they are covered, demon- 
strate. 
The magnificence of Alexandria under the 
Grecian dynasty was worthy of the fame of the 
' * Pocock's Travels, Vol. I. 3. 
