170 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OP THE CONTEMPLATION 



great mart on the Malabar coast (south of Mangalor), 

 to which internal traffic brought articles of commerce from 

 the Eastern coast of the Indian Peninsula, and even gold 

 from the remote Chrysa (Borneo ?) . The honour of being the 

 first to apply this new system of Indian navigation is ascribed 

 to an otherwise unknown mariner, Hippalus ; and even the 

 precise period at which he lived is doubtful. ( 261 ) 



Whatever brings nations together, and by rendering large 

 portions of the Earth more accessible, enlarges the sphere 

 of men's knowledge, belongs to the history of the contempla- 

 tion of the Universe. The opening of a water communication 

 between the Bed Sea and the Mediterranean by means of 

 the Nile, holds an important place in this respect. At the 

 part where a slender line of junction barely unites the two 

 continents, and which offers the deepest maritime inlets, the 

 excavation of a canal had been commenced, not indeed by 

 the great Sesostris (Bamses Miamoun) to whom Aristotle 

 and Strabo ascribe it, but by Nechos (Neku), who, however, 

 was deterred by oracles given by the priests from prosecuting 

 the undertaking. Herodotus saw and described a finished 

 canal which entered the Nile somewhere above Bubastis, 

 and was the work of the Achsemenian, Darius Hystaspes. 

 Ptolemy Philadelphus restored tin's canal which had fallen 

 into decay, in so complete a manner, that although (notwith- 

 standing a skilful arrangement of locks and sluices) it was 

 not navigable at all seasons of the year, it long aided and 

 greatly promoted traffic with Ethiopia, Arabia, and India, 

 continuing to do so under the Roman sway as late as the 

 reign of Marcus Aurelius, and perhaps even as late as 

 that of Septimius Severus, a period of four centuries and 

 a half. With a similar purpose of encouraging inter- 

 course by means of the Red Sea, harbour works were sedtt- 



