All Thursday and Thursday night the fires continued to rage
and spread, until on Friday " two miles of fire" were visible, and it was known that the whole European quarter and the whole centre of the city, a city of 200,000 souls, had perished, while the suburbs were still burning fiercely. Nothing effectual could be done to,extinguish the flame.-G, for the water supply had been cut off ; but the Admiral, though almost without force for lauding, placed 700 Marines round the Khedive in. his palace, and by the latest telegram was endeavouring,
with parties of sailors and Gatling gnus, to clear the city of plunderers. All respectable inhabitants had quitted it, but the destruction must have been appalling, and the loss of property must have amounted to millions. There can be no doubt that the conflagration was intended as an act of final vengeance, and to prevent Europeans ever reigning in the city, which has possibly perished for ever. It was already suffering from the competi- tion of Port Said, at the entrance to the Canal, and it is thither that the commercial business will be transferred. When Mehemet All began to reign, Alexandria, once the Queen City of the Mediterranean, was only a wretched village of 8,000 people, and its new prosperity arose from his works and the European trade.
