The island of _Pharos_ was situated in front of the city, and between it and the coast there were excellent places for anchoring, which communicated with one another, but were separated by cliffs. The Ptolemies constructed a causeway across the narrow channel by means of draw-bridges. Thus arose the two harbours, the old and the new one, which are at present separated by a neck of land, but are much inferior to what they were in antiquity; they have been spoiled during a long period of barbarous neglect, and especially by throwing ballast overboard. The ships of the Mahommedans enter only the western port, which is the safer one. The island of Pharos contained the celebrated light-house, one of the improvements of an age in which the feelings and the heart had already become greatly deteriorated, but in which the mechanical arts had made considerable progress. Lucian, who often embellishes history, here also furnishes a story which is as absurd as it well can be. He says that Sostratus of Cnidus built this light-house, and that, against the will of Ptolemy, he caused his own name to be engraved under the inscription in praise of the king.[84] But according to Strabo, Sostratos was the king’s minister, and acquired the special favour of his sovereign by building the light-house at his own expense. The inscription, Σώστρατος Δεξιφανοῦς Κνίδιος θεοῖς σωτῆρσιν ὑπὲρ τῶν πλωιζομένων is quite in the style of the time; the θεοὶ σωτῆρες are Ptolemy and Berenice. The whole space between the harbour and lake Mareotis was occupied by the city of Alexandria, and in the time of Augustus a large suburb is said to have existed at a distance of thirty stadia from the city, in the direction of Canobus. Alexandria is a classical place in the history of nations and of literature: it was the residence of Eratosthenes, the first geographer we meet with in the history of the world.[85] NAUCRATIS, below Sais in Lower Egypt, was a Greek settlement, under the supremacy of Egypt, nearly in the same manner in which Macao is a Portuguese town: Greeks dwelt there and had their own magistrate, or, so to speak, their own consul. Many authors are said to have been natives of the place; Phylarchus, e.g., is called Naucratites, but it was mere pedantry and affectation to speak of Naucratis instead of Alexandria as the Greek city. The Egyptian towns generally had two names, one Egyptian and the other Greek; the native names are preserved in Coptic fragments, and have been made out by Champollion; a map also has been made with these names. The modern names are formed from the Arabic. SOME MORE GREEK COLONIES.