The Name Of Rafa Is Still Preserved Near A Well In The Desert, At Six
Hours March To The Southward Of Gaza, Where Among Many Remains Of Of
Ancient Buildings, Two Erect Granite Columns Are Supposed By The Natives
To Mark The Division Between Africa And Asia.
Polybius remarks
(l.5,c.80), that Raphia was the first town of Syria, coming from
Rhinocolura, which was considered an Egyptian town.
Between Raphia and
the easternmost inundations of the Nile, the only two places at which
there is moisture sufficient to produce a degree of vegetation useful to
man, are El Arish and Katieh. The whole tract between these places,
except where it has been encroached upon by moving sands, is a plain
strongly impregnated with salt, terminatig towards the sea in a lagoon
or irruption of the sea anciently called Sirbonis. As the name of
Katieh, and its distance from Tineh or Pelusium, leave no doubt of its
being the ancient Casium, the only remaining question is, whether El
Arish is Rhinocolura, or Ostracine? A commentary of St. Jerom, on the
nineteenth chapter of Isaiah, v.18, suggests the possibility that the
modern name El Arish may be a corruption of the Hebrew Ares, which, as
Jerom observes, means [Greek text], and alludes to Ostracine. Jerom was
well acquainted with this country; but as the translators of Isaiah have
supposed the word not to have been Ares, and as Jerom does not state
that Ares was a name used in his time, the conjecture is not of much
weight. It is impossible to reconcile the want of water so severely felt
at Ostracine (Joseph. de Bel. Jud. l.4, ad fin. Plutarch, in M. Anton.
Gregor. Naz. ep. 46.), with El Arish, where there are occasional
torrents, and seldom any scarcity of well water, either there or at
Messudieh, two hours westward. Ostracine, therefore, was probably near
the [Greek text] of the lagoon Sirbonis, about mid-way between El Arish
and Katieh, on the bank described by Strabo (p. 760), which separates
the Sirbonis from the sea. This maritime position of Ostracine is
confirmed by the march of Titus, (Joseph. ibid.) Leaving the limits of
the Pelusiac territory, he moved across the desert on the first day, not
to the modern Katieh, but to the temple of Jupiter, at Mount Casium, on
the sea shore, at the Cape now called Ras Kasaroun; on the second day to
Ostracine; on the third to Rhinocolura; on the fourth to Raphia; on the
fifth to Gaza. It will be seen by the map that these positions, as now
settled, furnished exactly five convenient marches, the two longest
being naturally through the desert of total privation, which lies
between El Arish and Katieh. As the modern route, instead of following
the sea shore, passes to the southward of the lagoon, the site of
Ostracine has not yet been explored.
[p.viii]It would seem, from the evidence regarding Petra which may be
collected in ancient history, that neither in the ages prior to the
[p.ix]commercial opulence of the Nabataei, nor after they were deprived
of it, was Wady Mousa the position of their principal town.
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