In 828 the Venetians, according to their own account, stole from Alexandria the body of St. Mark, concealing it first in a tub of pickled pork in order to repel the attentions of the Moslem officials on the quay. The theft was a pardonable one, for the Arabs never seem to know that it had been made; it occasioned much satisfaction in Venice and no inconvenience in Alexandria. St. Mark procured, there was little to attract the European world; the ports of Egypt were now Rosetta (Bolbitiné Mouth of the Nile), and Damietta (Phatnitic Mouth); there was no reason to approach Alexandria now that her water system had collapsed. Towards the end of the Arab rule she did indeed regain some slight importance; the Mameluke Sultan of Cairo, Kait Bey, built on the ruins of the Pharos the fine fort that bears his name (1480). He built it as a defence against the growing naval power of the Turks. The Turks conquered Egypt in 1517, and a new but equally unimportant chapter in the history of Alexandria begins. ST. THEONAS: p. 170. ATTARINE MOSQUE: p. 143. MOSQUE OF THE PROPHET DANIEL: p. 104. FRAGMENT OF ARAB WALL: p. 106, 155. FORT KAIT BEY: p. 133. THE TURKISH TOWN (16th-18th Cents.) Under the Turks the population continued to shrink, so that eventually the narrow enclosure of the Arab walls became too large. A new settlement sprang up on the neck of land that had formed between the two harbours. It still exists and is known as the “Turkish Town.” A second-rate affair; little more than a strip of houses intermixed with small mosques; a meagre copy of Rosetta, where the architecture of these centuries can best be studied. So unimportant a place can have no connected history. All that one can do is to quote the isolated comments of a few travelers. (i) The English sailor, John Foxe, (1577) has a lively tale to tell. He had been caught by the Turkish corsairs and imprisoned with his mates. With the connivance of a friendly Spaniard he organised a mutiny, recaptured his ship and in true British style worked it out of the Eastern Harbour under the fire of the guns on Kait Bey. (ii) John Sandys (1610) gives a quaint but impressive description of the decay:— Such was this Queen of Cities and Metropolis of Africa: who now hath nothing left her but ruins; and those ill witnesses of his perished beauties: declaring rather that towns as well as men have the ages and destinies.... Sundry Mountains were raised of the ruins, by Christians not to be mounted; lest they should take too exact a survey of the city: in which are often found, (especially after a shower) rich stones and medals engraven with the figure of their Gods and men with such perfection of Art as these now cut seeme lame to those and unlively counterfeits.