years of his life there; but to Orpheus and Agne all was new, and even
the girl, when once she had escaped from the crowd and noise which
oppressed her, took an interest in the scene and asked a question now and
then. The younger man had not eyes enough to see all that claimed his
attention and admiration.

There were the great sluice-gates at the entrance to the canal that
joined the lake to the sea--there, in a separate dock, lay the splendid
imperial Nile-boats which served to keep up communication between the
garrison of Alexandria and the military stations on the river--there,
again, were the gaudy barges intended for the use of the 'comes', the
prefect and other high officials--and there merchant-vessels of every
size lay at anchor in countless number. Long trains of many-colored
sails swept over the rippling lake like flights of birds across a
cornfield, and every inch of the shore was covered with stores or
buildings. Far away to the south long trellices of vine covered the
slopes, broken by the silvery glaucous tones of the olive-groves, and by
clumps of towering palms whose crowns mingled to form a lofty canopy.
White walls, gaudily-painted temples and private villas gleamed among the
green, and the slanting rays of the low sun, shining on the drops that
fell from the never-resting wheels and buckets that irrigated the land,
turned them into showers of diamonds. These water-works, of the most
ingenious construction, many of them invented and contrived by scientific
engineers, were the weapons with which man had conquered the desert that
originally surrounded this lake, forcing it into green fertility and
productiveness of grain and fruit. Nay, the desert had, for many
centuries, here ceased to exist. Dionysus the generous, and the kindly
garden-gods had blest the toil of men, and yet, now, in many a plot--in
all which belonged to Christian owners--their altars lay scattered and
overthrown.