to it. On the whole, the city may be fairly reckoned as the
first in the world, whether for magnitude and beauty, for
traffic, or for the greatness of its revenues."--"It
comprehended," says Gibbon, speaking of it under the Roman
Emperors, "a circumference of fifteen miles, and was peopled
by 300,000 free inhabitants, besides, at least, an equal
number of slaves."

Choereas, himself a native of the city, who had been called upon to
take service in the late expedition against the buccaniers, does the
honours of the locale to his new friends:--but he is not proof against
the fatal charms of Leucippe, and resorts to the old expedient of
procuring her abduction by a crew of pirates while on an excursion to
the Pharos. The vessel of the captors is, however, chased by a
guard-boat, and on the point of being taken, when Leucippe is brought
on deck and decapitated by the pirates, who throw the headless body
into the sea, and make their escape; while Clitophon stays the
pursuit, to recover the remains of his mistress for sepulture.
Clitophon now returns to Alexandria to mourn for his lost love, and is
still inconsolable at the end of six months, when he is surprised by
the appearance of Clinias, whom he had supposed to have perished when
the vessel foundered at sea. Clinias relates that having, like the
others, floated on a piece of the wreck, he had been picked up by a
ship, which brought him back to Sidon; and as his absence from home
had been so short as not to have been generally noticed, he had
thought it best not to mention it, especially as he had no good
account to give of his fellow-fugitives. In the mean time, as
Calligone is given up for lost, Sostratus, who has heard of his
daughter's attachment to Clitophon, but not of the elopement, writes
from Byzantium to give his consent to their union; and diligent