the Romans re-entered the port, surprised the city, and massacred the Mussulmans. On learning this, Amrou returned, found the Romans masters of the citadel, attacked them, and forced them, after a sanguinary conflict. Such as escaped death then abandoned to its barbarous conquerors this powerful city, the magazine of Constantinople, which it fed, and the centre of the commerce of the East with Europe. Egypt submitted to the conqueror. “I have taken,” said Amrou, in his despatch to the caliph, “the great city of the West; it is impossible for me to describe to you all its riches, all its magnificence; I shall content myself with telling you that it contains four thousand palaces, four thousand baths, four hundred theatres, twelve thousand shops for vegetables and fruits, and forty thousand tributary Jews. The city was taken by force, without either treaty or capitulation, and the Mussulmans are impatient to gather the fruits of their victories.” The commander of the faithful rejected with firmness all ideas of pillage, and ordered his lieutenant to preserve Alexandria and its wealth for the use and propagation of Islamism. Amrou asked him if he must equally respect the famous library of Serapeon, containing more than five hundred thousand volumes, the only archives of the learning of the ancient Egyptians, and of the progress of human knowledge up to the invasion of the Mussulmans. To this the caliph replied: “Either that which the books of which thou speakest contain, agrees with the Koran, or it does not agree. If it agrees with it, the Koran suffices; if it does not agree, they are pernicious: burn them.” Amrou obeyed with regret. During six months the fragments of these books served to heat the baths of Alexandria. This irreparable loss deprived the human race of a mass of useful knowledge, dried up an abundant source of improvement, and contributed greatly to the spreading of the darkness and ignorance in which Europe was plunged for six hundred years. FIFTH SIEGE, A.C. 645.