1882.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



357 



I. Til Basta (ancient 



Uabastis). 

 ■2. Tel Aboo Sooley- 



man. 

 8. Tel-el-Kebcer. 

 4. Tel Retabtth. 

 6. Telel-Maskhata. 



6. Ancient Canal of 

 Seti I. 



7. New Freshwater 

 Canal. 



8. LakeTimsah. 



9. Snez Canal. 



10. Great Bitter Lake. 



11. Lake Mabsamah. 



12. Pools of Kigabah. 



13. ZatcaziB (station). 



14. Aboo Kebeor (ata- 

 . tion). 



IB. Belbeis (station). 



16. Aboo]Jamma<l(8ta- 



tion). 



17. Tel-elKebeer (sta- 



tion). 



18. Hahsamah (sta- 



tion). 



19. Ramsis (station). 



20. Nefcesh (station). 



21. Ismalleeyah (tc-r- 



minns). 

 0. Lake Ballah. 



Rail-ivays. 

 Canals. 



Ancient Canal. 

 Suez Canal. 

 Limits of 



Desert. 

 Cultivated 



Lands. 



^ 



Pools and 



Marshes. 

 Roads. 



Moands of 

 AncicntCities. 

 Large towns 



(stations). 

 Small towns 



(stations). 



M.\P OF WADY TDMIL-\T. 



WAS RAMESES II. THE PHARAOH 

 OF THE OPPRESSION ? 



By Ameli.*. B. Edwards. 

 XII.— THE ANCIENT CANAL. 

 TTTE have now to see how far all these scattered topo- 

 \ y graphical details correspond with the actual position 

 of the ancient mounds of Wady Turailat ; the sites of which, 

 with their Arabic names, are laid down in the accompany- 

 ing sketch-map. Zagazig, the modern county-town of the 

 modern province of Sherkeeyeh, has risen, not upon, hut 

 near, the ruins of Bubastis (Egyptian, Fa-Bast, Pa-Beset, 

 Pa-Baris) ; that famous city dedicated to the worship of 

 the cat-headed Goddess Bast, where the cat was a sacred 

 animaJ, not one of whose nine lives could be taken under 

 pain of death to the slayer. The piled mounds of the 

 ancient city, brown and jagged, like extinct craters, rise 

 close beside the railway, and are familiar objects to all who 

 journey to and fro between Cairo and Ismaileeyah. The 

 Arabs call the place " Tel Basta " ; its name having clung 

 to it unaltered to this present day. A network of canals 

 fed from the Great Moo'czz Canal (in old time the Tanitic 

 branch of the Nile) here intersects the country in all 

 directions ; and from this point the Freshwater Canal, 

 witliout which M. de Lesseps' workmen could not have 

 been kept alive, was conducted through Wady Tumilat to ! 

 Ismaileeyah, and thence along the western shores of the 

 Bitter Lakes to the head of the Gulf of Suez. At a spot j 

 rather more than half way through Wady Tumilat, which | 

 is 37 miles in length, there may be seen upon our map j 

 the small sheet of water called Lake Mah.samali.* This 

 natural reservoir could not have been more usefully placed 

 for the purposes of the new Canal, and the French engi- 

 neers were not slow to utilise it. In all probability, how- 

 •ever, it had l>een made available for the same purpose some 

 three thousand ye.ars before ; for here, at various points 

 along the bottom of the valley, the engineers came upon 

 the bed of the ancient canal begun by Seti I., carried on by 

 Rameses IL, and in later times successively resumed and 

 abandoned by the Persian, Greek, Roman, and Arab rulers 



illiigp and station, whoro 

 was fought, and several 



• Within a short distance of Mabsamah 

 the successful little action of September 2o 

 (rains wero captured. 



of Egypt This is the canal which Herodotus describes as 

 " derived from the Nile a little above the city of Bubastis, 

 near Patumus (Pa-Tum) the Arabian town, being con- 

 tinued thence until it joins the Red Sea" (Book II., 

 chap. 158) ; and which Strabo describes as flowing 

 " through the Bitter Lakes and emptying itself into the 

 Red Sea." Both, however, are mistaken as to the master- 

 mind which first conceived the idea of uniting the waters 

 of the Nile and the Gulf of Suez. Herodotus attributes 

 the beginning of the canal to Nekau (Necos) the successor 

 of Psammetichus I., and Strabo gives the glory to Sesostris 

 (Ranieses II.) But the chronicled walls of Karnak — even 

 the outer walls of that Hall of Giant Pillars which Seti I. 

 dedicated within to Amen the God, and withont to himself 

 the Pharaoh — preserve to this day not only a record of the 

 existence of the canal in his time, but a sculptured repre- 

 sentation of it, in perfect prcser\ation. The King, re- 

 turning from victories in Syria, drives his captives before 

 his chariot, and is met on the frontier by his priests and 

 nobles, bearing bouquets and chanting praises. The Canal 

 flows between the conqueror and his subjects. It is fortified 

 and crossed by a bridge. Its waters swarm with crocodiles, 

 and it empties itself into a large basin on the Syrian side. 

 The inscription expressly draws attention to the presence 

 of the crocodiles in its waters, and states that the name of 

 the canal is "The Cutting." This is the celebrated bas- 

 relief which the guidebooks erroneously describe as repre- 

 senting the return of Seti across the Nile. This view has 

 unfortunately obtained the support of M. Lenormaut, who 

 admits that the stream is hieroglyphically described as 

 a "canal," but declines nevertheless to recognise in it 

 anything but the Pelusiac branch of the Nil& Yet there 

 is a witness whose testimony on this point seems to me to 

 be incontrovertible ; and tliat witness is the ancient artist 

 himself. I wish 1 could put his elaborate bas-relief, in all 

 its simple truthfulness of treatment, before the eyes of the 

 readers of this number of Kxcwlkdce. 1 wish I could 

 point out to them, more forcibly than by written words, 

 the childlike device by which he has striven to show that 

 the canal is an artificial work. Representations of rivers 

 are not uncommon on Egyptian monuments. Three famous 

 examples in illustrationof the Battle of Kadosh on the 

 Oront»'s occur on the pylons of Luxor and the Ramessum, 

 and on the north wall of the Great Hall at Aboo Siinbel ; 



