The country of the Pharaohs has a fascinating interest, which is even increased by a personal visit, such as it was my privilege to make in 1905. We disembarked at Alexandria, whose harbor contained a third of the "seven wonders," the first great lighthouse which under the Ptolemies antedated the Christian era by more than two centuries. It was the pioneer of the thousands of similar beacons that have since been erected around the earth. It rose, according to a possibly exaggerated claim, to the height of 600 feet on the island of Pharos connected by a mole with the mainland. It sent its bright rays far out over the water for the guidance of mariners. The city to which we have come bears the name of its founder, Alexander the Great. The Latin inscription on St. Paul's in London regarding Sir Christopher Wren, its great architect, could fittingly be applied to the illustrious Macedonian, "Si requiris monumentum, circumspice," if you seek his monument, look around you.

But this memorial city, the gateway to Egypt, reminds us of various historic events and personages. The Alexandrian library, famous under the Ptolemies and the Caesars, shows what a great seat of learning the place was, and naturally it produced such celebrities as Euclid, the father of geometry, and Hipparchus, the reputed founder of the science of astronomy, and the New Testament Apollos, whose name is a synonym for eloquence, and Philo the master of allegorical interpretation, and Origen and Clement of the early church fathers. When the library, the source of information for so many, when this as it existed in the seventh century was destroyed by the Caliph Omar, he argued that "if these writings agree with the Book of God (the Koran), they are useless, and need not be preserved; if they disagree, they are pernicious, and ought to be destroyed." When the

edict of destruction went forth, for half a year the 300,000 (and perhaps 700,000) valuable parchments supplied the fuel for the 4,000 baths of the city. The irreparable loss has ever since been bemoaned. Modern critics do not credit this it of vandalism of the year 641, they do not consider the vidence sufficient to justify us in believing that the literary accumulation of nearly a thousand years was thus destroyed, but there is no discrediting the destruction by the Germans in 1914 of Louvain, when both the great University there and its valuable library were completely wiped out, and for this ruthlessness William Hohenzollern will be excoriated by all future ages.

From Alexandria, 285 B. C. (and onward for 150 years), came the Septuagint version of the Bible, the Greek translation used by the Lord and his apostles. Mark is said to have carried the gospel thither. In the ninth century two Venetian sea-captains, with an enterprise once characteristic of "the bride of the Adriatic," are said to have secured in Alexandria his body. They deposited it in a large basket, covered it with swine's flesh which Mussulmen abhor, and when they were suspiciously questioned as to what they were carrying off, they had only to answer, Pork, at the sight of which the inspectors turned away with loathing. The precious remains so curiously concealed got to Venice, and over them St. Mark's cathedral was erected. The story is all pictured out in splendid mosaic on the front of that church, where you can see the Alexandrian questioners with averted faces fairly holding their noses, as the uncovered basket displayed at its top the horrible pork. Thus is one of the finest of European edifices linked in thought with the Egyptian city to which we have come.

Alexandria's classic associations are most alluring.

Antony and Cleopatra there played their parts, and Shakespeare's drama, in which they are the leading characters, will never let their memories fade. We can still hear the Roman, who had lost honor and virtue, uttering the tragic, "I am dying, Egypt, dying," which a poet has enlarged into these lines:

"I am dying, Egypt, dying,

Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast,
And the dark Plutonian shadows
Gather on the evening blast.

As for thee, star-eyed Egyptian,
Glorious sorceress of the Nile,
Light the path to Stygian horrors

With the splendors of thy smile."

No less tragic was the end of Cleopatra, who in the language of the dramatist cried,

"Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have
Immortal longings in me. Now, no more

The juice of Egypt's grape shall moist this lip."

We recall also how, according to tradition, she had a countryman with a basket of figs admitted to her apartments, while from concealment in the fruit she applied one asp to her fair bosom and another to her white arm, as she said,

"With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate
Of life at once untie.”

There was in the lives of these two noted persons not only tragedy but also comedy. This comes out in a fishing experience which Plutarch says they had together on the