Here, in the middle of the colonnade, stood the famous Library--rich, even after the terrible fire, in the possession of seven hundred thousand volumes, and which held, among other precious treasures, the Septimus, that first translation of the Bible into Greek, made by seventy-two learned Egyptian Jews, under Ptolemy Philadelphus. Not far distant, as though to seek the fountain of spiritual nourishment, clustered the group of temples of Serapis. This centre of learning, home of history, philosophy, medicine, and mathematics, as well as guardian of previous manuscripts, was in very truth the light of the world. To-day, after two thousand years, we are indebted to it for the preservation of the life of Greek literature. The instruction given there, the names of the savants who taught, the methods employed, the accuracy of the instruments, the very quality of the papyrus furnished the students, all these were so justly famous that wealthy people of all countries, Rome, Athens, even distant Asia, who had some especially gifted son desired to send him there, that he might bear the illustrious seal of having been a student at Alexandria. Across the distance, to the wide avenues where chariots, litters, cavalcades were thronging the broad streets, Cleopatra was still gazing. She saw the circuses, the theatres; the gymnasium, with the crowd at its doors, reading the announcements; the stadium, with its circling race-course; she looked at the gigantic hippodrome, which twenty thousand spectators could barely fill; at the widely scattered temples which over-topped the houses, dominating the other buildings by their mysterious grandeur, and farther on, she saw, with a thrill of awe, the Soma, that mausoleum where, in a crystal sarcophagus, rested the repatriated body of her heroic ancestor.