•WARS OF THE CALIPHS. 



357 



territory have occurred more opportunely for the 

 Arabs Their own country was visited by a famine, 

 and Omar earnestly solicited a supply of corn for 

 the starving inhabitants. The demand was in- 

 stantly and profusely aiiswered ; a tram of camels, 

 bearing on their backs the produce of the gardens 

 and granaries of Egj-pt, ^vas despatched for their 

 rehef, extending in a contimious chain from Mem- 

 phis to Medina, a distance of 100 leagues. The 

 tediousness of this mode of conveyance suggested 

 to the caliph the plan of opening a maritime com- 

 munication between the Nile and the Red ^ea,— an 

 experiment which Trajan, and the Ptolemys, and the 

 Pharaohs had attempted in vain. The resources 

 of the 4rabs were equal to its accomplishment ; and 

 a canal of at least eighty miles in length was opened 

 by the soldiers of Amru. This inland na^agation, 

 which would have joined the Mediterranean and 

 Indian Ocean, continued in use for some time, if we 

 may believe Eutychius and Elmacin, and was called 

 the River of the Emperor of the Faithful. But when 

 the caliphs removed their seat of government from 

 Medina to Damascus, its utihty was sacrificed to an 

 apprehension of the danger which might ensue from 

 its opening to the Grecian fleet a passage to the 

 holy cities of Arabia. 



The anxiety of Omar to learn something Oi this 

 new territory, of which he had but an imperfect and 

 leeendary knowledge, was natural ; and the lively 

 description of Amru in his answer would augment 

 rather than diminish his romantic conceptions of 

 this singular country. " O, Commander of the 

 Faithful' EsjV^ is a compound of black earth and 

 ereenplantsVbetween a pulverized mountain and a 

 red sand. The distance from Syene to the sea is a 

 month^s journey for a horseman. Along the valley 

 descends a river, on Avhich the blessing of the Most 

 Hiffh reposes, both in the evening and morning, and 

 which rises and falls with the revolutions of the su:i 



