of the dikes and canals, so essential to the public welfare.
Under his administration, the fertility of Egypt supplied the dearth of
Arabia; and a string of camels, laden with corn and provisions, covered
almost without an interval the long road from Memphis to Medina. [126]
But the genius of Amrou soon renewed the maritime communication which
had been attempted or achieved by the Pharaohs the Ptolemies, or the
Caesars; and a canal, at least eighty miles in length, was opened from
the Nile to the Red Sea. [1261] This inland navigation, which would have
joined the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, was soon discontinued as
useless and dangerous: the throne was removed from Medina to Damascus,
and the Grecian fleets might have explored a passage to the holy cities
of Arabia. [127]

[Footnote 125: This curious and authentic intelligence of Murtadi
(p. 284-289) has not been discovered either by Mr. Ockley, or by the
self-sufficient compilers of the Modern Universal History.]

[Footnote 126: Eutychius, Annal. tom. ii. p. 320. Elmacin, Hist.
Saracen. p. 35.]

[Footnote 1261: Many learned men have doubted the existence of a
communication by water between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean by
the Nile. Yet the fact is positively asserted by the ancients. Diodorus
Siculus (l. i. p. 33) speaks of it in the most distinct manner as
existing in his time. So, also, Strabo, (l. xvii. p. 805.) Pliny (vol.
vi. p. 29) says that the canal which united the two seas was navigable,
(alveus navigabilis.) The indications furnished by Ptolemy and by the
Arabic historian, Makrisi, show that works were executed under the
reign of Hadrian to repair the canal and extend the navigation; it then
received the name of the River of Trajan Lucian, (in his Pseudomantis,
p. 44,) says that he went by water from Alexandria to Clysma, on the
Red Sea. Testimonies of the 6th and of the 8th century show that
the communication was not interrupted at that time. See the French
translation of Strabo, vol. v. p. 382. St. Martin vol. xi. p. 299.--M.]

[Footnote 127: On these obscure canals, the reader may try to satisfy
himself from D'Anville, (Mem. sur l'Egypte, p. 108-110, 124, 132,) and
a learned thesis, maintained and printed at Strasburg in the year 1770,
(Jungendorum marium fluviorumque molimina, p. 39-47, 68-70.) Even
the supine Turks have agitated the old project of joining the two seas.
(Memoires du Baron de Tott, tom. iv.)]

Of his new conquest, the ca