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Here I take my leave of the opinions of the Ionians, and proceed to
deliver my own sentiments on these subjects. I consider Egypt to be
the whole country inhabited by the Egyptians, just as Cilicia is the
tract occupied by the Cilicians, and Assyria that possessed by the
Assyrians. And I regard the only proper boundary-line between
Libya and Asia to be that which is marked out by the Egyptian
frontier. For if we take the boundary-line commonly received by the
Greeks, we must regard Egypt as divided, along its whole length from
Elephantine and the Cataracts to Cercasorus, into two parts, each
belonging to a different portion of the world, one to Asia, the other
to Libya; since the Nile divides Egypt in two from the Cataracts to
the sea, running as far as the city of Cercasorus in a single stream,
but at that point separating into three branches, whereof the one which
bends eastward is called the Pelusiac mouth, and that which slants to
the west, the Canobic. Meanwhile the straight course of the stream,
which comes down from the upper country and meets the apex of the
Delta, continues on, dividing the Delta down the middle, and
empties itself into the sea by a mouth, which is as celebrated, and
carries as large a body of water, as most of the others, the mouth
called the Sebennytic. Besides these there are two other mouths which
run out of the Sebennytic called respectively the Saitic and the
Mendesian. The Bolbitine mouth, and the Bucolic, are not natural
branches, but channels made by excavation.
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