important among these was the old royal road on the coast of the
Mediterranean Sea, or the "Road of the Philistines" of the Scriptures.
This road crossed the Isthmus of Suez and led through the land of the
Philistines and Samaria to Tyre and Sidon. Another road led, in a
northwesterly direction, from Rameses to Pelusium. This, however,
crossed marshes, lagoons and a whole system of canals, and was used only
by travelers without baggage, while the Pharaohs, accompanied by their
horses, chariots and troops, preferred the former road. A third road
led from Coptos, on the Nile, to Berenice, on the Red Sea. There were
between these two cities ten stations, about twenty-five miles apart
from each other, where travelers might rest with their camels each day,
after traveling all night, to avoid the heat. Still another road led
from the town of Babylon, opposite Memphis, along the east bank of the
Nile, into Nubia. Much of the commerce of Egypt in ancient times, as in
our day, was conducted on the Nile and its canals. The boatman and the
husbandman were, in fact, the founders of the gentle manners of the
people who flourished four thousand years ago in the blessed valley of
the Nile. There is one canal among the many which deserves special
mention. It flowed from the Bitter Lakes into the Red Sea near the city
of Arsinoe. It was first cut by Sesostris before the Trojan times, or,
according to other writers, by the son of Psammitichus, who only began
the work and then died. Darius I. set about to complete it, but gave up
the undertaking when it was nearly finished, influenced by the erroneous
opinion that the level of the Red Sea was higher than Egypt, and that if
the whole of the intervening isthmus were cut through, the country would
be overflowed by the sea. The Ptolemaic kings, however, did cut it
through and placed locks upon the canal.

Carthage was a Phoenician colony. The city was remarkable for its
situation. It was surrounded by a very fertile territory and had a
harbor deep enough for the anchorage of the largest vessels. Two long
piers reached out into the sea, forming a double harbor, the outer for
merchant ships and the inner for the navy. This city early became the
head of a North African empire, and her fleets plied in all navigable
waters known to antiquity. Her navy was the largest in the world, and
in the sea-fight with Regulus comprised three hundred and fifty vessels,
carrying one hundred and fifty thousand me