CHAPTER III.
ALEXANDRIA.
Internal administration of the Ptolemies .-- Industry of the people .-- Its happy effects .-- Idleness the parent of vice .-- An idle aristocracy generally vicious .-- Degradation and vice .-- Employment a cure for both .-- Greatness of Alexandria .-- Situation of its port .-- Warehouses and granaries .-- Business of the port .-- Scenes within the city .-- The natives protected in their industry .-- Public edifices .-- The light-house .-- Fame of the light-house .-- Its conspicuous position .-- Mode of lighting the tower .-- Modern method--The architect of the Pharos .-- His ingenious stratagem .-- Ruins of the Pharos .-- The Alexandrian library .-- Immense magnitude of the library .-- The Serapion .-- The Serapis of Egypt .-- The Serapis of Greece .-- Ptolemy's dream .-- Importance of the statue .-- Ptolemy's proposal to the King of Sinope .-- His ultimate success .-- Mode of obtaining books .-- The Jewish Scriptures .-- Seclusion of the Jews .-- Interest felt in their Scriptures .-- Jewish slaves in Egypt .-- Ptolemy's designs .-- Ptolemy liberates the slaves .-- Their ransom paid .-- Ptolemy's success .-- The Septuagint .-- Early copies of the Septuagint .-- Present copies .-- Various other plans of the Ptolemies .-- Means of raising money .-- Heavy taxes .-- Poverty of the people .-- Ancient and modern capitals .-- Liberality of the Ptolemies .-- Splendor and renown of Alexandria .-- Her great rival.
It must not be imagined by the reader that the scenes of vicious indulgence, and reckless cruelty and crime, which were exhibited with such dreadful frequency, and carried to such an enormous excess in the palaces of the Egyptian kings, prevailed to the same extent throughout the mass of the community during the period of their reign.

The internal administration of government, and the institutions by which the industrial pursuits of the mass of the people were regulated, and peace and order preserved, and justice enforced between man and man, were all this time in the hands of men well qualified, on the whole, for the trusts committed to their charge, and in a good degree faithful in the performance of their duties; and thus the ordinary affairs of government, and the general routine of domestic and social life, went on, notwithstanding the profligacy of the kings, in a course of very tolerable peace, prosperity, and happiness.

During every one of the three hundred years over which the history of the Ptolemies extends, the whole length and breadth of the land of Egypt exhibited, with comparatively few interruptions, one wide-spread scene of busy industry.
The inundations came at their appointed season, and then regularly retired.

The boundless fields which the waters had fertilized were then every where tilled.

The lands were plowed; the seed was sown; the canals and water-courses, which ramified from the river in every direction over the ground, were opened or closed, as the case required, to regulate the irrigation.