He There Turned By The Lands Of Gedrosia,
Caramania, And Persia, To The Great City Of Babylon, Leaving The Command
Of His Fleet To Onesicratus And Nearchus, Who Sailed Through The Straits
Of The Persian Sea And Up The River Euphrates, Discovering The Whole
Coast Between The Indus And That River.
After the death of Alexander, Ptolemy became king of Egypt, who by some
was reputed to have been the bastard son of Philip, the father of
Alexander:
He, imitating the before named kings, Sesostris and Darius,
caused dig a canal from the branch of the Nile which passed by Pelusium,
now by the city of Damieta[34]. This canal of Ptolemy was an hundred feet
broad and thirty feet deep, and extended ten or twelve leagues in length,
till it came to the _bitter wells_. He meant to have continued it to the
Red Sea; but desisted on the idea that the Red Sea was three cubits
higher than the land of Egypt, and would have overflowed all the country,
to its entire ruin.
Ptolemy Philadelphus, in the year 277 before Christ, changed the
direction of the Indian traffic. The goods from Europe, by his orders,
were carried up the Nile from Alexandria to the city of Coptus, and
conveyed across the desert from thence to the sea-port of Myos-Hormos on
the Red-sea[35]. To avoid the excessive heat, the caravans travelled only
in the night, directing their course by the stars; and water being very
scarce in the desert, they had to carry a sufficient quantity with them
for the journey.
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