BOOK VI. xxxn. 162-xxxni. 165 



taken as a whole, they are the richest races in the 

 world, becaiise vast wealth from llome and Parthia 

 accunmlates in their hands, as they sell the produce 

 they obtain from the sea or their forests and buy 

 nothinjT in return. 



XXXIII. We vdW now foUow along the rest of the The consta 

 coast lying opposite to Arabia. Timosthenes esti- sea.^ 

 mated the length of the M'hole gulf at four « days' 

 sail, the breadth at two, and the width of the Straits 

 of Bab-el-Mandeb as 1\ miles ; Eratosthenes makes 

 the length of the coast on either side from the 

 mouth of the gulf 1200 miles ; Artemidorus gives the 

 length of the coast on the Arabian side as 1750 

 miles and on the side of the Cave-dwcller country 

 as far as Ptolemais 1184+ miles ; Agrippa says that 

 there is no difference between the two sides, and gives 

 the length of each as 1732 miles. Most authorities 

 give the breadth as 475 miles, and the mouth of the 

 gulf facing south-west some make 4 miles widc, 

 others 7 and others 12. 



The lie of the land is as follows : on leaving the 

 Laeanitic Gulf there is another gulf the Arabic name 

 of which is Aeas, on which is the town of Heroon. 

 Formerly there was also the City of Cambyses, 

 between the Neli and the Marchades ; this was the 

 place where the invaUds from the army of Cambyses 

 were settled. Then come the Tyro tribe and the 

 Harbour of the Daneoi, from which there was a project 

 to carry a ship-canal through to the Nile at the CancU/rom 

 place where it flows into what is called the Delta, sea/° 

 over a space of 62+ miles, which is the distance 

 between the river and the Red Sea ; this project 

 was originally conceived by Sesostris King of Egypt, 

 and latcr by the Pcrsian King Darius and then again 



461 



