There are two ports, the Old and the New. The entrance into the latter is both difficult and dangerous, having a bar before it; it is the least of the two, though it is what is called the Great Port, by [59]Strabo. Here only the European ships can lie; and, even when here, they are not in safety; as numbers of vessels are constantly lost, though at anchor. Above forty were cast a-shore and dashed to pieces in March 1773, when I was on my return home, mostly belonging to Ragusa, and the small ports in Provence, while little harm was done to ships of any nation accustomed to the ocean. It was curious to observe the different procedure of these different nations upon the same accident. As soon as the squall began to become violent, the masters of the Ragusan vessels, and the French caravaneurs, or vessels trading in the _Mediterranean_, after having put out every anchor and cable they had, took to their boats and fled to the nearest shore, leaving the vessels to their chance in the storm. They knew _the furniture_ of their ships to be too flimsy to trust their lives to it. Many of their cables being made of a kind of grass called Spartum, could not bear the stress of the vessels or agitation of the waves, but parted with the anchors, and the ships perished. On the other hand, the British, Danish, Swedish, and Dutch navigators of the _ocean_, no sooner saw the storm beginning, than they left their houses, took to their boats, and went all hands on board. These knew the sufficiency of their tackle, and provided they were present, to obviate unforeseen accidents, they had no apprehension from the weather. They knew that their cables were made of good hemp, that their anchors were heavy and strong. Some pointed their yards to the wind, and others lowered them upon deck. Afterwards they walked to and fro on their quarter-deck with perfect composure, and bade defiance to the storm. Not one man of these stirred from the ships, till calm weather, on the morrow, called upon them to assist their feeble and more unfortunate brethren, whose ships were wrecked and lay scattered on the shore. The other port is the [60]Eunostus of the ancients, and is to the westward of the Pharos. It was called also the Port of Africa; is much larger than the former, and lies immediately under part of the town of Alexandria. It has much deeper water, though a multitude of ships have every day, for ages, been throwing a quantity of ballast into it; and there is no doubt, but in time it will be filled up, and joined to the continent by this means. And posterity may, probably, following the system of Herodotus (if it should be still fashionable) call this as they have done the rest of Egypt, _the Gift of the Nile_.