The Oil Is Fat And Not Less Suitable For
Burning Than Olive-Oil, But It Gives Forth A Disagreeable Smell.
Against The Gnats, Which Are Very Abundant, They Have Contrived As
Follows:
- Those who dwell above the fen-land are helped by the towers,
to which they ascend when they go to rest; for the gnats by reason of
the winds are not able to fly up high:
But those who dwell in the fen-
land have contrived another way instead of the towers, and this it is:
- every man of them has got a casting net, with which by day he
catches fish, but in the night he uses it for this purpose, that is to
say he puts the casting-net round about the bed in which he sleeps,
and then creeps in under it and goes to sleep: and the gnats, if he
sleeps rolled up in a garment or a linen sheet, bite through these,
but through the net they do not even attempt to bite.
Their boats with which they carry cargoes are made of the thorny
acacia, of which the form is very like that of the Kyrenian lotos, and
that which exudes from it is gum. From this tree they cut pieces of
wood about two cubits in length and arrange them like bricks,
fastening the boat together by running a great number of long bolts
through the two-cubits pieces; and when they have thus fastened the
boat together, they lay cross-pieces over the top, using no ribs for
the sides; and within they caulk the seams with papyrus. They make one
steering-oar for it, which is passed through the bottom of the boat;
and they have a mast of acacia and sails of papyrus. These boats
cannot sail up the river unless there be a very fresh wind blowing,
but are towed from the shore: down-stream however they travel as
follows: - they have a door-shaped crate made of tamarisk wood and reed
mats sewn together, and also a stone of about two talents weight bored
with a hole; and of these the boatman lets the crate float on in front
of the boat, fastened with a rope, and the stone drags behind by
another rope. The crate then, as the force of the stream presses upon
it, goes on swiftly and draws on the /baris/ (for so these boats are
called), while the stone dragging after it behind and sunk deep in the
water keeps its course straight. These boats they have in great
numbers and some of them carry many thousands of talents' burden.
When the Nile comes over the land, the cities alone are seen rising
above the water, resembling more nearly than anything else the islands
in the Egean Sea; for the rest of Egypt becomes a sea and the cities
alone rise above water. Accordingly, whenever this happens, they pass
by water not now by the channels of the river but over the midst of
the plain: for example, as one sails up from Naucratis to Memphis the
passage is then close by the pyramids, whereas the usual passage is
not the same even here, but goes by the point of the Delta and the
city of Kercasoros; while if you sail over the plain to Naucratis from
the sea and from Canobos, you will go by Anthylla and the city called
after Archander. Of these Anthylla is a city of note and is especially
assigned to the wife of him who reigns over Egypt, to supply her with
sandals, (this is the case since the time when Egypt came to be under
the Persians): the other city seems to me to have its name from
Archander the son-in-law of Danaos, who was the son of Phthios, the
son of Achaios; for it is called the City of Archander. There might
indeed by another Archander, but in any case the name is not Egyptian.
Hitherto my own observation and judgment and inquiry are the vouchers
for that which I have said; but from this point onwards I am about to
tell the history of Egypt according to that which I have heard, to
which will be added also something of that which I have myself seen.
Of Min, who first became king of Egypt, the priests said that on the
one hand he banked off the site of Memphis from the river: for the
whole stream of the river used to flow along by the sandy mountain-
range on the side of Libya, but Min formed by embankments that bend of
the river which lies to the South about a hundred furlongs above
Memphis, and thus he dried up the old stream and conducted the river
so that it flowed in the middle between the mountains: and even now
this bend of the Nile is by the Persians kept under very careful
watch, that it may flow in the channel to which it is confined, and
the bank is repaired every year; for if the river should break through
and overflow in this direction, Memphis would be in danger of being
overwhelmed by flood. When this Min, who first became king, had made
into dry land the part which was dammed off, on the one hand, I say,
he founded in it that city which is now called Memphis; for Memphis
too is in the narrow part of Egypt; and outside the city he dug round
it on the North and West a lake communicating with the river, for the
side towards the East is barred by the Nile itself. Then secondly he
established in the city the temple of Hephaistos a great work and most
worthy of mention. After this man the priests enumerated to me from a
papyrus roll the names of other kings, three hundred and thirty in
number; and in all these generations of men eighteen were Ethiopians,
one was a woman, a native Egyptian, and the rest were men and of
Egyptian race:
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