90 History of Nature. [BooK V. 



And because he had vanquished most Fierce Nations, at the 

 first he named it Damea. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



The Islands before Asia, the Pamphylian Sea ; Rhodus, 

 Samus, and Chios. 



THE first of the Islands before Asia is in the Canopic 

 Mouth of the Nilus, so called, as they say, from Canopus, 

 the Pilot of King Menelaus. 1 The second is Pharus, which 

 is joined to Alexandria by a Bridge. In old Time it was a 

 Day's Sailing from Egypt : and now by Fires from a Watch- 

 Tower, Sailors are directed in the Night. It is a Colony of 

 Ctesar the Dictator. Alexandria is encompassed with de- 

 ceitful Shallows, and there are but three Channels from the 

 Sea; Tegamum, Posideum, and Taurus. Next to that Isle, 

 in the Phrenician Sea before Joppa, lieth Paria, an Island 

 not larger than the Town, in which they report that Andro- 

 meda was exposed to the Beast. 2 Also Arados beforenamed, 

 between which and the Continent, as Mutianus says, there is 

 a Fountain in the Sea, where it is fifty Cubits deep, out of 

 which Fresh Water is drawn from the very Bottom of the 

 Sea, through Pipes made of Leather. The Pamphylian Sea 

 hath some Islands of little Importance. In the Cilician Sea 

 is Cyprus, one of the Five greatest, and it lieth east and 

 west, opposite Cilicia and Syria ; in Times past the Seat of 

 Nine Kingdoms. Timosthenes saith, that it contained in 

 Circuit four hundred and nineteen Miles and a half; 

 but Isidorus is of opinion, that it is but three hundred 

 and seventy-five Miles in Compass. Its Length between 

 the two Promontories, Dinaretas and Acamas, which 

 is westward, Artemidorus reporteth to be 160| Miles: and 



1 Jacob Bryant, in his "Analysis of Ancient Mythology," (vol. ii. p. 4,) 

 says, " that the priests of Egypt laughed at this account of the pilot of 

 Menelaus, as an idle story ; affirming that the place was much more an- 

 cient than the people of Greece ; and the name not of Grecian original." 

 Also Stephanus of Byzantium calls the pilot Pharos, and not Canopus. 

 Wern. Club. 



Seep. 67 of this vol. 



