ALEXANDRIA. 
hero from whom it derived its name. It was 
built in the form of a long square, or, as it is 
termed by Strabo, a mantle or toga, and occupied 
a space of four leagues in circuit. As the long 
sides of the square were protected from the sea 
and the lake Mareotis, it presented such a narrow 
front on the sides accessible by land, that it form- 
ed a position of great strength. The buildings 
were grand and stately, their arrangement was 
strictly regular, and the great streets, which in- 
tersected each other at the central square of the 
city, were the most magnificent in the world. 
Under the Arabian dynasty its splendour gra- 
dually declined with its commerce, to which the 
genius of fanaticism is always hostile. Though 
its population rapidly diminished, though its an- 
cient walls were demolished, and contracted to 
half their original dimensions, it still preserved a 
part of its superb edifices and monuments, and its 
former opulence was evinced by the slowness of 
its decay. At the period of the late French in- 
vasion, the walls of Alexandria were of Arabic 
structure, formed of the ruins of the ancient city ; 
they exhibited fragments of monuments and con- 
creted stony masses, consisting chiefly of fossil 
and sparry shells irregularly united by a common 
cement.* From the neglect of the canals, and 
* Sonnini's Travels, 4to. p. 77. 
