|
Psammetichus left a son called Necos, who succeeded him upon the
throne. This prince was the first to attempt the construction of the
canal to the Red Sea - a work completed afterwards by Darius the
Persian - the length of which is four days' journey, and the width
such as to admit of two triremes being rowed along it abreast. The
water is derived from the Nile, which the canal leaves a little above
the city of Bubastis, near Patumus, the Arabian town, being
continued thence until it joins the Red Sea. At first it is carried
along the Arabian side of the Egyptian plain, as far as the chain of
hills opposite Memphis, whereby the plain is bounded, and in which
lie the great stone quarries; here it skirts the base of the hills
running in a direction from west to east, after which it turns and
enters a narrow pass, trending southwards from this point until it
enters the Arabian Gulf. From the northern sea to that which is
called the southern or Erythraean, the shortest and quickest passage,
which is from Mount Casius, the boundary between Egypt and Syria,
to the Gulf of Arabia, is a distance of exactly one thousand
furlongs. But the way by the canal is very much longer on account of
the crookedness of its course. A hundred and twenty thousand of the
Egyptians, employed upon the work in the reign of Necos, lost their
lives in making the excavation. He at length desisted from his
undertaking, in consequence of an oracle which warned him "that he was
labouring for the barbarian." The Egyptians call by the name of
barbarians all such as speak a language different from their own.
|
|