“I have conquered the town of the West, and I cannot recount all it contains within its walls.  It contains four thousand baths and twelve thousand venders of green vegetables, four thousand Jews who pay tribute, and four thousand musicians and mountebanks.”

Amr was anxious to conciliate and gain the affection of the new subjects he had added to the caliph’s empire, and during his short stay in Alexandria received them with kindness and personally heard and attended to their demands.  It is commonly believed that in this period the Alexandrian Library was dismantled; but, as we have already seen, the books had been destroyed by the zeal of contending Christians.  The story that attributes the destruction of this world-famous institution to the Arabian conquerors is so much a part of history, and has been so generally accepted as correct, that the traditional version should be given here.

Among the inhabitants of Alexandria whom Amr had so well received, says the monkish chronicler, was one John the Grammarian, a learned Greek, disciple of the Jacobite sect, who had been imprisoned by its persecutors.  Since his disgrace, he had given himself up entirely to study, and was one of the most assiduous readers in the famous library.  With the change of masters he believed the rich treasure would be speedily dispersed, and he wished to obtain a portion of it himself.  So, profiting by the special kindness Amr had shown him, and the pleasure he appeared to take in his conversation, he ventured to ask for the gift of several of the philosophic books whose removal would put an end to his learned researches.

At first Amr granted this request without hesitation, but in his gratitude John the Grammarian expatiated so unwisely on the extreme rarity of the manuscripts and their inestimable value, that Amr, on reflection, feared he had overstepped his power in granting the learned man’s request.  “I will refer the matter to the caliph,” he said, and thereupon wrote immediately to Omar and asked the caliph for his commands concerning the disposition of the whole of the precious contents of the library.

The caliph’s answer came quickly.  “If,” he wrote, “the books contain only what is in the book of God (the Koran), it is enough for us, and these books are useless.  If they contain anything contrary to the holy book, they are pernicious.  In any case, burn them.”

[Illustration:  327.jpg COIN OF OMAR]

Amr wished to organise his new government, and, having left a sufficient garrison in Alexandria, he gave orders to the rest of his army to leave the camp in the town and to occupy the interior of Egypt.  “Where shall we pitch our new camp?” the soldiers asked each other, and the answer came from all parts, “Round the general’s tent.”  The army, in fact, did camp on the banks of the Nile, in the vicinity of the modern Cairo, where Amr had ordered his tent to be left; and round this tent, which had become the centre of reunion, the soldiers built