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PART II. have each of them a well or cistern. Each of these towers has a platform on the top, of above twenty paces every way, and could contain a great many men in arms; by which means this city anciently could doubtless make a vigorous defence. For the walls of these towers were a great many feet thick; and quite round them were portholes, very large within, but which grew straiter and straiter as they run out.

71.

Of Cleopa

Here are also to be seen the remains of Cleopatra's patra's palace, lace, which was on the sea shore. By the stately chambers. and apartments, the ruins whereof still remain, it is but reasonable to suppose, that it was a very lofty and magnificent building.

72.

ins of Alex

andria.

sent state of.

St. Mark's church.

Le Bruyn says, he never saw finer ruins in any place Of the ru- else. For on all sides one meets with some or other. The beauty of the rest may be guessed at, by two represented in Le Bruyn's Travels, p. 170, and numbered 103 and 104. 73. As to the present state of this city, it is within almost Of the pre- wholly ruinated, having but a few houses, that are inhathis city, bited. There is still to be seen St. Mark's church, in posand first of session of the Christian Coptes or Egyptians. Anciently this was a very large church, but at present it is no more than a little round chapel. They still shew part of the pulpit, wherein they pretend that St. Mark preached. It does still retain almost its form, and on the outside it is faced with stones of divers colours. The body of St. Mark, the first bishop of Alexandria, is said to have been deposited in this church, and to have lain there, till some Venetians, returning from the Holy Land, carried it along with them to Venice, where is a famous church, called St. Mark's church.

ture of Mi

74. There is likewise to be seen in this church a piece of a Of the pic: picture, which they pretend to have been painted by St. chael the Luke. It represents St. Michael the Archangel, and is a Archangel, little more than an half-length, with a sword in one hand, altogether after the antique fashion, without any art, not to say any thing of the mixture of the colours, of which there is too great a variety.

said to be

drawn by

St. Luke.

of St. Ca

There is also in this city the church of St. Catharine, CHAP. I. where is still preserved the pillar on which they say she 75. was beheaded; or rather, which preserves the memory of The church the place where she was beheaded. More will be said of tharine. this saint, in the description of mount Sinai. There are in this church several pieces of painting, some of which were very well designed.

clusion.

And thus I have at length gone through most, if not The conall, the places of Egypt, that occur in the sacred history, excepting Succoth, Pi-hahiroth, and Baal-zephon, mentioned in the account given us of the encampments of the Israelites, when they went out of Egypt. And these will be taken notice of in the following chapter, as treating of the said encampments of the Israelites.

The introduction,

CHAP. II.

Of the Journeyings of the Israelites, from their setting forth from Rameses in Egypt, to their encamping near the river Jordan, on the east side thereof.

HAVING spoken of such places in the land of Egypt, as are mentioned in Scripture, I shall now accompany the Israelites in their journeyings from Egypt to the river Jordan. And, as it seems proper to contain all their journeyings in one chapter, so (forasmuch as their journeyings lay through different countries, and also forasmuch as some particular places occur therein, which deserve more particular notice; for these reasons) it seems expedient to distinguish this chapter into the several sections following.

1.

The Israel

SECT. I.

Of the Journeyings of the Israelites from Rameses to the
Red Sea.

AFTER that the other signs, which God had wrought in ites permit the sight of Pharaoh and the Egyptians, and the other ted by Pharaoh and plagues he had brought upon them, proved ineffectual, the Egypti- the divine Providence was as it were forced, in the last ans to begin their jour- place, to bring upon them that most dreadful plague, neyings out whereby all the first-born in the land of Egypt died, from the first-born of Pharaoh that sat upon the throne, even unto the first-born of the woman-servant that was behind the mill, i. e. the woman-slave, who was made to turn the mill, which she did, by thrusting forward the part of the mill she held, and so coming herself behind or after it. Now, either these mills were in prisons, or else such as

of Egypt.

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