[365] For Bilâl and his office of Muedzzin, see Life of Mahomet, p. 204.
[366] The male population alone, we are told, numbered 600,000. There were 70,000 (according to others 40,000) male Jews of an age to pay the poll tax, and 200,000 Greeks, of whom 30,000 effected their escape by sea before the siege. The baths were 4,000 in number, the theatres 400, and the harbour held 12,000 vessels of various size.
[367] The narrative is almost more fugitive, and the chronology less certain, than in the case of Syria. The expedition is variously placed at from A.H. XVI. to XXV. The earlier date is due probably to the notion (before explained) that Amru assisted Medîna with corn in the year of famine; the later date, to the attempt of the Greeks to retake Alexandria, A.H. 25. The best authenticated date is that which I have followed. The received account is this. Amru obtained permission for the campaign from Omar at Jâbia, probably on his last visit to Syria. When the Caliph returned to Medîna and reflected on the seriousness of the enterprise, he repented of having allowed Amru to go on with so small a force, and sent orders that if he had not already entered Egypt, he was to return. Warned probably of its purport, Amru did not open the packet till he had crossed the boundary; and so he went forward. When Omar was informed of this he sent Zobeir with 12,000 men to reinforce him. Other accounts say that Amru’s entire force consisted of 12,000 men, despatched from Palestine and Medîna, in three bodies, one after another. Some stories are told, but they look apocryphal, of Amru having visited Alexandria, before his conversion, many years previously.
[368] For the communications of this Mucoucus with Mahomet see Life, pp. 385 and 440.
[369] Memphis, in the vicinity of modern Cairo. The advance was probably made by Salahiya up the Pelusian branch of the Nile, to the north of Ismailia and Wolseley’s recent line of march.
[370] Later historians (whose accounts, however, bear the mark of being apocryphal) represent the Moslem army as at one time in considerable peril, surrounded and hemmed in at Heliopolis by the rising waters of the Nile. Mucoucus having retired to an island on the farther side of the Nile, broke up the bridge across it. Deputations were then sent by boat to and fro; and the Mussulman envoys delivered speeches before Mucoucus, exhorting and threatening the governor, much in the style of those recited at the Persian Court before the battle of Câdesîya. Mucoucus, who is represented as favourable to Islam, at last entered into terms with the invaders.
[371] Heraclius died in February, A.D. 641.
[372] The tale of Amru being taken prisoner in an attack on the outworks is not mentioned by any early authority, and seems to possess no foundation. The story is, that when carried before the authorities, his freedman, who had been captured with him, slapped Amru on the face, and so deceived the Greeks into the belief that he was a common soldier who might be set at liberty.
[373] Here again we see the same nervous fear on the part of Omar, lest his soldiers, wandering too far, or beyond some great river, should be surprised and cut off, as led him at the first to forbid an advance on Persia. Ghîzeh, properly Jîzeh, j in Egypt being pronounced as hard g.
[374] This name Câhira, or City of the Victory, is of later date.