214 On the Arabian Frontier of Egypt. 



In the absence of a definite statement that Darius did 

 actually intercept this water-course, our clue of evidence 

 appears very slender. Indeed it is so fragmentary, that in 

 oi'der to reunite the detached links of our broken chain, and 

 so connect them as to lead us to a satisfactory conclusion, it 

 will be necessary to make an apparent digression from the 

 main point, to discuss two very important geographical 

 questions, which, at first sight, may appear but remotely 

 connected with the subject immediately imder considera- 

 tion. 



Strabo, writing at or about the time of the Christian era, 

 mentions certain lakes, situated somewhere in the vicinity 

 of the Sethreitic nome, which formerly were bitter, but 

 which in his time had been rendered sweet by the waters of 

 the canal that led to Arsinoe being introduced into them. 

 The first point to be settled, is to determine the site of those 

 lakes.* 



It has always been taken for granted that their site must 

 have been the great hollow, now occupied by salt marshes, 

 lying between the ancient Serapeumt and the neighbourhood 



* He is describing the country above Pelusium in Arabia. 



" It is said tliat there are some other lakes and canals in the same parts out 

 of the Delta. Near one of these lakes is the Sethreitic nome, one of the ten 

 that are reckoned in the Delta. Two other canals enter these lakes ; one leads 

 to the Arabian Gulf, to the city Arsinoe, which some call Cleopatris. It also 

 flows through the so-called bitter lakes, which indeed formerly were bitter ; 

 but this canal being cut, they were made sweet by mixing with the river, and 

 now abound with excellent fish and lake-fowls. * * * Near Arsinoe is also 

 the city of Ileroon (Heroopolis) and Cleopatris, in the inner recess of the Ara- 

 bian Gulf, the one nearest to Egypt, [ev rSj fiV^SJ rov Aga/3/ou xoXrrou rui 

 -jrphc A'/yvTrrov] as well as harbours and dwellings, and several canals, with 

 lakes adjacent to them. Here also are the nome and city of Phagroriopolis. 

 The beginning of the canal that led into the Red Sea is near Phacusa." — 

 Strabo''s Qcogr., Book xvii., p. 804. 



This passage, whicli some have deemed so decisive in settling — or rather un- 

 settling, the vexed question of the position of Heroopolis, will be found to lose 

 much of its decisive character when thus given entire, prefaced by Strabo's 

 own admission, that he speaks only by report of parts he had not himself visit- 

 ed, — and closed by the statement that the canal began near Phacusa. AVe can- 

 not refuse him a corresponding latitude of meaning, or looseness of expression, 

 when he speaks of Hero, on that canal, being near Aivinoe — esjiecially as it was 

 the nearest city of note, and so easily accessible by water. 



* Ivie iMap, Plate IV. 



