BOOK VI.] History of Nature. 153 



until you come to Ptolemais : but Agrippa 1322, without any 

 distinction of the Sides. Most Geographers have set down 

 the Breadth to be 462 Miles : and the Mouth of it against 

 the Sun-rising in Winter, (i. e. South-west) some say, is 7 

 Miles Broad ; and others 12. The Situation of it is this : 

 Beyond the Bay called JElaniticus there is another Bay 

 which the Arabians call jEant, on which standeth the Town 

 Heroon. There was also Cambisu, between the Neli and 

 Marchandae, into which the sick Soldiers were conveyed. 

 The Nation of Tyra ; the Port Daneon, from which Sesostris, 

 King of Egypt, was the first that imagined to conduct a 

 Navigable Channel into the Nile, in that part where it 

 runneth to the Place called Delta, for the Space of 62 

 Miles ; which is between the River and the Red Sea. This 

 Enterprise was followed by Darius, King of the Persians : 

 and afterwards by Ptolomceus, who also made a Channel 

 100 Feet in Breadth, and 30 Deep, for Thirty-Seven Miles 

 and a Half in Length, even to the Bitter Fountains. But 

 this Design went no farther, through fear of an Inundation : 

 the Red Sea being found to lie Three Cubits above the Land 

 of Egypt. Some allege that this was not the true cause, 

 but that if the Sea were let into the Nile the Water thereof 

 (of which only they drink) would be corrupted. Never- 

 theless the Way is well frequented from the Egyptian Sea ; 

 and there are Three ordinary Ways there : one from Pelu- 

 sium over the Sands, where, unless Reeds be set up in the 

 Ground for direction, no Path would be found, because the 

 Wind bloweth the Sand over the Tracts of the Feet. A 

 second beginneth Two Miles beyond the Mountain Casius, 

 which after sixty Miles returneth into the Pelusiac Way. 

 Here the Arabians called Autei inhabit. The Third begin- 

 neth at Gereum, which they call Adipson, and passeth 

 through these same Arabians, being Sixty Miles nearer, but 

 full of craggy Hills, and altogether destitute of Water. All 

 these Ways lead to Arsinoe, which was built upon the Gulf 

 Charandra by Ptolemceus Philadelphus, and bearing his 

 Sister's Name : and he was the first that searched narrowly 

 into the Region Trogloditicum ; and the River that passeth 



