AND LOWER EGYPT. 9 1 



CHAP. VII. 



Deserts of Libya — Coasts of Egypt — Towers of the 

 Arabs — Landing at Alexandria — Its forts — Its 

 commerce — Glimpse of the city of Alexandria. 



When in going before the wind eastward, in 

 sight of the coast of Africa, you have passed 

 Derna *, where vessels loaded by the Turks some- 

 times stop, there remains, up to Alexandria, a long 

 extent of shore entirely unknown. It is in the 

 midst of those burning plains of Libya, a domain 

 never to be rescued from sterility, that we are to 

 look for the western boundaries of Egypt ; boun- 

 daries left undetermined from the remotest an- 

 tiquity. Disputes had arisen between the two co- 

 lonies settled on the banks of the lake Mareotis, 

 now dried up, respecting the confines of Egypt 

 and Libya ; they consulted the oracle of Jupiter- 

 Ammon ; his decision was, as Herodotus relates, 

 that all the country which the Nile inundated, by 

 its overflowing, should belong to the former of 

 these two countries ; a very uncertain line of de- 

 markation, as it depended on the greater or less 

 degree of labour and industry employed to convey 

 the waters of the river to different distances. Of 



* Probably tlie Den his extrema of Strabo and Ptolomy. 



what 



