the first mosch was blessed by the presence of fourscore companions of Mahomet. 104 A new city arose in their camp, on the eastward bank of the Nile; and the contiguous quarters of Babylon and Fostat are confounded in their present decay by the appellation of old Misrah, or Cairo, of which they form an extensive suburb. But the name of Cairo, the town of victory, more strictly belongs to the modern capital, which was founded in the tenth century by the Fatimite caliphs. 105 It has gradually receded from the river; but the continuity of buildings may be traced by an attentive eye from the monuments of Sesostris to those of Saladin. 106 101 (return) [ Strabo, an accurate and attentive spectator, observes of Heliopolis, (Geograph. l. xvii. p. 1158;) but of Memphis he notices, however, the mixture of inhabitants, and the ruin of the palaces. In the proper Egypt, Ammianus enumerates Memphis among the four cities, maximis urbibus quibus provincia nitet, (xxii. 16;) and the name of Memphis appears with distinction in the Roman Itinerary and episcopal lists.] 102 (return) [ These rare and curious facts, the breadth (2946 feet) and the bridge of the Nile, are only to be found in the Danish traveller and the Nubian geographer, (p. 98.)] 103 (return) [ From the month of April, the Nile begins imperceptibly to rise; the swell becomes strong and visible in the moon after the summer solstice, (Plin. Hist. Nat. v. 10,) and is usually proclaimed at Cairo on St. Peter’s day, (June 29.) A register of thirty successive years marks the greatest height of the waters between July 25 and August 18, (Maillet, Description de l’Egypte, lettre xi. p. 67, &c. Pocock’s Description of the East, vol. i. p. 200. Shaw’s Travels, p. 383.)] 104 (return) [ Murtadi, Merveilles de l’Egypte, 243, 259. He expatiates on the subject with the zeal and minuteness of a citizen and a bigot, and his local traditions have a strong air of truth and accuracy.] 105 (return) [ D’Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 233.]