402 PTOLEMETA TO MERGE.

part of the country alluded to by Arab writers as the territory of Barca. Barca, under the Arabs, was a considerable province, but it suffered materially from the tyranny of Yazouri and a great part of its inhabitants abandoned their country and established themselves in Egypt and other places. Many of the emigrants settled in Alexandria ; but when that city was afterwards laid waste by the plague, in the dreadful manner described by Abd’ Allatif, more than twenty thousand persons quitted it for Barca, and the province again assumed a flourishing appearance f. # The city known by the Arabs under the name of Barca never appears to have been (in their time) of any importance ; but the ancient city so called was (after Cyrene) the most considerable town of the Cyrenaica ; and continued to flourish down to the time of the Ptolemies when it appears to have been eclipsed by Ptolemais. Its inhabitants were celebrated, like those of Cyrene, for their skill in the management of horses and chariots ; the former of which arts they are said to have received from Neptune, the latter from Minerva; which is stating in other words that at a very early period nothing was known of the origin of this custom in Africa. In the age of Pindar the Cyrenaica was still celebrated for its excellent Yazouri was Grand Khadi and governor of Egypt and Barca, in the i-eign of the Caliph Mostanser-Billah. He was stripped of these posts, and of that of Vizier, which he also held, in the year 450.

+ This author relates, that he himself was credibly informed, that on 07ie single day (a Friday) the Imam at Ale.\andria had read the funeral service over seve7i hundred people !

— and that, in the space of a month, the same property had passed to fourteen persons who inherited it in succession.