420 
pliny's natural histoet. 
[Book Y. 
miles across, and 150 in circumference, according to Claudius 
Caesar. Other writers say that it is forty schoeni in length, 
making the schoenum to be thirty stadia ;• hence, accord- 
ing to them, it is 150 miles ^ in length and the same in 
breadth. 
There are also, in the latter part of the course of the Nile, 
many towns of considerable celebrity, and more especially 
those which have given their names to the mouths of the 
river — I do not mean, all the mouths, for there are no less 
than twelve of them, as well as four others, which the people 
call the Ealse Mouths^. I allude to the seven more famous 
ones, the Canopic^ Mouth, next to Alexandria, those of Bol- 
bitine^, Sebennys^, Phatnis^, Mendes^, Tanis^, and, last of all, 
Pelusium^. Besides the above there are the tow^ns of Butos^^, 
1 Its real dimensions were something less than 300 stadia, or thirty 
geographical miles long, and rather more than 150 stadia wide. 
2 Or " Pseudostomata." These were crossed in small boats, as they 
were not navigable for ships of bm-den. 
3 In the Pharaonic times Canopus was the capital of the nome of 
Menelaites, and the principal harbour of the Delta. It probably owed 
its name to the god Oanobus, a pitcher full of holes, with a human head, 
which was worshipped here with pecuhar pomp. It was remarkable for 
the nmnber of its festivals and the general dissoluteness of its morals. 
Traces of its ruins are to be seen about three miles from the modern 
Aboukir. 
4 Corresponding to the modern Haschid or Rosetta. It is supposed 
that this place was noted for its manufactory of chariots. 
^ The town of Sebennys or Sebennytum, now Samannoud, gave name 
to one of the nomes, and the Sebennytic Mouth of the Nile. 
6 Or the Pathinetic or BucoHc Mouth, said to be the same as the 
modern Damietta Mouth. 
7 Xhe capital of the Mendesian nome, called by the Arabs Ochmoun. 
This mouth is now known as the Deibeh Mouth. 
^ Now called Szan or Tzan. The Tanitic Mouth, which is sometimes 
called the Saitic, is at the present day called Omm-Faredje. 
9 Its ruins are to be seen at the modern Tineh. This city in early 
times had the name of Abaris. It was situate on the eastern side of the 
most easterly mouth of the Nile, which, after it, was called the Pelusiac 
Mouth, about two miles from the sea, in the midst of morasses. Being 
the frontier city towards Syria and Arabia it was strongly fortified. It 
was the birth-place of Ptolemy the geographer. 
^0 Butos or Buto stood on the Sebennytic arm of the Nile near its 
mouth, on the southern shores of the Butic Lake. It was the chief seat 
of the worship of the goddess Buto, whom the Grreeks identified with 
Leto or Latona. The modern Kem Kasir occupies its site. 
