CHAP. II. 



EGYPT AND NUBIA. 41 



produce of the lake Mceris was not included in 

 this sum, neither was the corn to the amount of 

 seven thousand talents more ; one hundred and 

 twenty thousand measures of which were applied 

 to the maintenance of the Persians, and their 

 auxiliary troops garrisoned within the castle of 

 Memphis *. The mineral wealth which existed 

 in Egypt in its most flourishing times must have 

 been partly transferred thither by means of com- 

 merce from "other territories. Egypt was then 

 a manufacturing and an agricultural country, 

 and furnished from both descriptions of their 

 products the means of attracting to it the 

 metallic wealth of other districts. Egypt was 

 especially productive of flax 2 and of cotton 3 , 

 and at an early period supplied to the Phoeni- 

 cians the raw materials for their extensive manu- 

 factories of both those kinds of goods. It also 

 abounded with corn ; and when the Hebrews 

 who usually supplied the Phoenicians with that 

 necessary had an insufficient quantity, a supply 

 was drawn from the banks of the Nile. We 



1 Herodotus, b. iii. cap. 91. 



2 See Exodus, chap. ix. v. 31, where the destruction of the 

 crop of flax by a storm of hail is noticed. 



3 Pliny, b. xix. c. 2. Superior pars ^gypti, in Arabiam 

 vergens, gignit fruticem, quern alii gossipium vocant, plures 

 xylina, et ideo lina facta xylina ; nee ulla sunt candore molli- 

 tieve preferenda. Vestes inde sacerdotibus ^Egypti gratissimae. 



