, who are still extant, had perused and compared the
writings of their predecessors; nor can it fairly be presumed that
any important truth, any useful discovery in art or nature, has been
snatched away from the curiosity of modern ages.

In the administration of Egypt, Amrou balanced the demands of justice
and policy; the interest of the people of the law, who were defended by
God; and of the people of the alliance, who were protected by man. In
the recent tumult of conquest and deliverance, the tongue of the Copts
and the sword of the Arabs were most adverse to the tranquillity of
the province. To the former, Amrou declared, that faction and falsehood
would be doubly chastised; by the punishment of the accusers, whom he
should detest as his personal enemies, and by the promotion of their
innocent brethren, whom their envy had labored to injure and supplant.
He excited the latter by the motives of religion and honor to sustain
the dignity of their character, to endear themselves by a modest and
temperate conduct to God and the caliph, to spare and protect a people
who had trusted to their faith, and to content themselves with the
legitimate and splendid rewards of their victory. In the management
of the revenue, he disapproved the simple but oppressive mode of a
capitation, and preferred with reason a proportion of taxes deducted on
every branch from the clear profits of agriculture and commerce. A third
part of the tribute was appropriated to the annual repairs of the
dikes and canals, so essential to the public welfare. Under his
administration, the fertility of Egypt supplied the dearth of Arabia;
and a string of camels, laden with corn and provisions, covered almost
without an interval the long road from Memphis to Medina. But the
genius of Amrou soon renewed the maritime communication which had been
attempted or achieved by the Pharaohs the Ptolemies, or the Caesars; and
a canal, at least eighty miles in length, was opened from the Nile
to the Red Sea. This inland navigation, which would have joined the
Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, was soon discontinued as useless
and dangerous: the throne was removed from Medina to Damascus, and
the Grecian fleets might have explored a passage to the holy cities of
Arabia.

Of his new conquest, the caliph Omar had an imperfect knowledge from
the voice of fame and the legends of the Koran. He requested that his
lieutenant would place before his eyes the realm of Pharaoh an