And I Thought That They Said Well About The Land;
For It Is Manifest In Truth Even To A Person
Who has not heard it
beforehand but has only seen, at least if he have understanding, that
the Egypt to
Which the Hellenes come in ships is a land which has been
won by the Egyptians as an addition, and that it is a gift of the
river: moreover the regions which lie above this lake also for a
distance of three days' sail, about which they did not go on to say
anything of this kind, are nevertheless another instance of the same
thing: for the nature of the land of Egypt is as follows: - First when
you are still approaching it in a ship and are distant a day's run
from the land, if you let down a sounding-line you will bring up mud
and you will find yourself in eleven fathoms. This then so far shows
that there is a silting forward of the land. Then secondly, as to
Egypt itself, the extent of it along the sea is sixty /schoines/,
according to our definition of Egypt as extending from the Gulf of
Plinthine to the Serbonian lake, along which stretches Mount Casion;
from this lake then the sixty /schoines/ are reckoned: for those of
men who are poor in land have their country measured by fathoms, those
who are less poor by furlongs, those who have much land by parasangs,
and those who have land in very great abundance by /schoines/: now the
parasang is equal to thirty furlongs, and each /schoine/, which is an
Egyptian measure, is equal to sixty furlongs. So there would be an
extent of three thousand six hundred furlongs for the coast-land of
Egypt. From thence and as far as Heliopolis inland Egypt is broad, and
the land is all flat and without springs of water and formed of mud:
and the road as one goes inland from the sea to Heliopolis is about
the same in length as that which leads from the altar of the twelve
gods at Athens to Pisa and the temple of Olympian Zeus: reckoning up
you would find the difference very small by which these roads fail of
being equal in length, not more indeed than fifteen furlongs; for the
road from Athens to Pisa wants fifteen furlongs of being fifteen
hundred, while the road to Heliopolis from the sea reaches that number
completely. From Heliopolis however, as you go up, Egypt is narrow;
for on the one side a mountain-range belonging to Arabia stretches
along by the side of it, going in a direction from the North towards
the midday and the South Wind, tending upwards without a break to that
which is called the Erythraian Sea, in which range are the stone-
quarries which were used in cutting stone for the pyramids at Memphis.
On this side then the mountain ends where I have said, and then takes
a turn back; and where it is widest, as I was informed, it is a
journey of two months across from East to West; and the borders of it
which turn towards the East are said to produce frankincense.
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