The city extends along a part of the isthmus and the peninsula; at the eastern extremity of which is situated a fort, where it would seem may formerly have stood the Pharos. This fort is now ruinous, and is joined with the continent by a mole built of stone, and in which are wrought arches, to weaken the effect of the water. It has been sheltered by a wall on the west side, now also ruinous. The houses, which are chiefly masonry, are commonly of more than one story, and well adapted to the mode of living among the inhabitants. Though rain occasionally fall in the autumn, a flat roof is found to answer every purpose of security from the weather, and accordingly it is the general form of the dwelling-houses. Of the deep and capacious reservoirs, which preserved the water of the Nile during the annual subsidence of that river, and of which there was probably a series, continued from one to the other extremity of the city, not more than seven remain fit for use. From these the citizens are at this time supplied; and, as they are some way removed from the inhabited quarter, a few of the poorer class obtain a subsistence by drawing the water, and carrying it on camels from house to house; and for each camel’s load they receive four or five _paras_, about twopence. The roofs of these cisterns or reservoirs are supported by massy timber. They have probably been thus constructed at the beginning, as it is difficult to suppose that the modern Alexandrians should entirely have changed so essential a part, and have chosen to substitute wood for stone, in a place where the former is extremely scarce, and the other very abundant. The elevation of the city above the level of the sea is small; and it seems very difficult to render it capable of offering any formidable resistance to an external enemy.