92 PLINY'S NATUKAL HISTORY. [Book VI. 



Soea, upon which is situate the city of Heroon. 74 The town 

 of Cambysu 75 also stood here formerly, between the Nell and 

 the Marchades, Cambyses having established there the in- 

 valids of his army. We then come to the nation of the Tyri, 

 and the port of the Danei, from which place an attempt has 

 been made to form a navigable canal to the river Nile, at the 

 spot where it enters the Delta previously mentioned, 76 the 

 distance between the river and the Red Sea being sixt} r -two 

 miles. This was contemplated first of all by Sesostris, 77 king 

 of Egypt, afterwards by Darius, king of the Persians, and 

 still later by Ptolemy II. , T8 who also made a canal, one hundred 

 feet in width and forty deep, extending a distance of thirty- 

 seven miles and a half, as far as the Bitter Springs. 79 He was 

 deterred from proceeding any further with this work by ap- 

 prehensions of an inundation, upon finding that the Red hea 

 was three cubits higher than the land in the interior of Egypt. 

 Some writers, however, do not allege this as the cause, but 

 say that his reason was, a fear lest, in consequence of intro- 

 ducing the sea, the water of the Nile might be spoilt, that being 

 the only source from which the Egyptians obtain water for 

 drinking. Ee this as it may, the whole of the journey from 

 the Egyptian Sea is usually performed by land one of the 

 three following ways : Either from Pelusium across the sands, 

 in doing which the only method of finding the way is by means 

 of reeds fixed in the earth, the wind immediately effacing all 



74 Or Heroopolis, a city east of the Delta, in Egypt, and situate near 

 the mouth of the royal canal which connected the Nile with the Red Sea. 

 It was of considerable consequence as a trading station upon the arm of the 

 lied Sea, which runs up as far as Arsinoe, the modern Suez, and was 

 called the " Gulf" or " Bay of the Heroes." The ruins of Heroopolis 

 are still visible atAbu-Keyscheid. 



75 This place, as here implied, took its name from Carabyses, the son of 

 Cyrus. 



76 In c. 9 of the preceding Book. " Dictum," however, may only mean, 

 " called" the Delta. 



77 Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, and Tzetzes, mention this, not with re- 

 ference to Sesostris, but Necho, the grandson of Sesostris. 



Ptolemy Philadelphus, son of Ptolemy Soter, or Lagides. 

 79 Now known by the name of Scheib. 'They derived their name from 

 the saline flavour and deposition of their waters. These springs were 

 strongly impregnated with alkaline salts, and with muriate of lime washed 

 from the rocks which separated the Delta from the Red Sea. The salt 

 which they produced being greatly valued, they were on that account re- 

 garded as the private property of the kings. 



