while a fresh series of marvels still awaited me, so that my powers of
vision were at last fairly exhausted, and obliged to confess
themselves beaten. The vast extent of the city, and the innumerable
multitude of the population, produced on the mind the effect of a
double paradox; for regarding the one, the stranger wondered where
such a city, which seemed as large as a continent, could find
inhabitants; but when his attention was drawn to the other, he was
again perplexed how so many people, more numerous than a nation, could
find room in any single city. Thus the two conflicting feelings of
amazement remained in equilibrio."

[5] These orders are said to have come from the "_satrap_,"
the Persian title having been retained under the Ptolemies,
for the governors of the _nomes_ or provinces. The description
of the stronghold of the buccaniers, in the deep recesses of a
marsh, and approachable only by a single hidden path, (like
the stockades of the North-American Indians in the swamps, as
described by Cotton Mather,) if not copied, like most of the
other Egyptian scenes, from the _Ethiopics_, presents a
curious picture of a class of men of whom few details are in
authentic history.

[6] The main street, according to Diodorus, was "forty stadia
in length, and a _plethrum_ (100 feet) in breadth; adorned
through its whole extent by a succession of palaces and
temples of the most costly magnificence. Alexander also
erected a royal palace, which was an edifice wonderful both
for its magnitude and the solidity of its architecture, and
all the kings who have succeeded him, even up to our times,
have spent great sums in further adorning and making additions