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I shall now mention a thing of which few of those who sail to Egypt
are aware. Twice a year wine is brought into Egypt from every part of
Greece, as well as from Phoenicia, in earthen jars; and yet in the
whole country you will nowhere see, as I may say, a single jar.
What then, every one will ask, becomes of the jars? This, too, I
will clear up. The burgomaster of each town has to collect the
wine-jars within his district, and to carry them to Memphis, where
they are all filled with water by the Memphians, who then convey them
to this desert tract of Syria. And so it comes to pass that all the
jars which enter Egypt year by year, and are there put up to sale,
find their way into Syria, whither all the old jars have gone before them.
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