364 NORTH-EAST AFRICA. 



when their farther progress was arrested by an oracle which declared that they 

 were being executed " for the benefit of a barbarian." 



And it was, in fact, a foreigner, King Darius of Persia, who opened the com- 

 munication between the Nile and the Gulf of Arsinoë, consequently between the 

 Mediterranean and Red Sea, by a well- constructed canal, wide enough, says 

 Herodotus, to allow two triremes to pass each other in raid-stream. According to 

 Diodorus Siculus, the same king even entertained the idea of cutting a canal from 

 sea to sea, between the Gulf of Pelusiura and the Red Sea. The works seem to 

 have even been begun, for the banks, some 16 feet high, are still to be seen of a 

 ditch from 160 to 180 or 200 feet wide, running from Lake Timsah by the Gisr 

 towards El-Kantara. But it was feared that the "waters of the Red Sea, standing 

 at a higher level than the plains of Egypt," would flood all the land, and for this 

 reason the works were discontinued. Monuments bearing inscriptions in four 

 languages — Persian, Medo-Scythian, Assyrian, and Egyptian — were erected on the 

 banks of the canal near Suez. These inscriptions record the fruitless attempts 

 made by Darius to accomplish the work successfully carried out in our days. The 

 fear entertained by the Persian monarch — a fear still shared by most engineers 

 down to the middle of the nineteenth century — is all the more easily understood 

 when it is considered that the mean level of the southern waters does in fact exceed 

 that of the Mediterranean at Pelusiura. At ebb there is scarcely any perceptible 

 difference, but at flow the Red Sea is considerably higher, in exceptional cases 

 as much as 90 or 100 inches. In the time of Darius the current setting north- 

 wards in consequence of this difference of level would have even been stronger than 

 at present, for the channel was narrower. 



But the old canal derived from the Nile gradually silted up, and the ditch cut 

 across the isthmus became choked with sand and mud. Nevertheless the memory 

 of the work accomplished did not perish, and more than one Egyptian ruler 

 continued to regard the project of uniting the two seas as an enterprise glorious 

 beyond all others. Ptolemy II. is said to have restored the canal, and, arguing 

 from certain somewhat obscure passages in Strabo and Diodorus, some writers have 

 even asserted that the cutting was effected directly from gulf to gulf. Skilfully 

 constructed sluices gave access to vessels without flooding the surrounding low-lying 

 tracts. However, the trafiic between the two marine basins was doubtless insufficient 

 to pay for the maintenance of the banks and sluices, and it has been supposed that 

 in the reign of Cleopatra the navigable highway must already have been again 

 closed. At least, according to Plutarch, the Egyptian queen endeavoured to have 

 her ships transported overland to the Red Sea, in order to escape, with all her 

 treasures, from Octavius after the battle of Actium. Nevertheless it is quite 

 possible that the canal may even then still have existed, if not permanently at least 

 during the Nilotic inundations. The time when she wanted to escape happened to 

 coincide with the period of low- water, when the canal would have been dry. 



After the Ptolemies the Roman conquerors took up the dream of uniting the 

 two seas. Trajan, who tried his hand at so many great enterprises, set to work 

 also on this project, and under the reign of Hadrian boats were navigating the 



