The Story of Cairo_, p. 61, tells us of its edifices,
and adds: "It is curious to consider how nearly this modern
health-resort became the capital of Egypt." Heluan is
situated on the right bank of the Nile. One would have
thought that the caravans proceeding to the interior of
Africa through the Sahara Desert would have started from the
left bank of the Nile; but we must remember that ancient
Memphis, which stood on the left bank and faced Heluan, had
been abandoned long before Benjamin's time. Edrisi and
Abulfeda confirm Benjamin's statement respecting Zawila or
Zaouyla, which was the capital of Gana--the modern Fezzan--a
large oasis in the Sahara Desert, south of Tripoli.]

[Footnote 180: This sentence is out of place, and should
follow the sentence in the preceding paragraph which speaks
of the Sultan Al-Habash.]

[Footnote 181: Kutz, the present Kus, is halfway between
Keneh and Luxor. The old town, now entirely vanished, was
second in size to Fostat, and was the chief centre of the
Arabian trade. The distance of Kus from Fayum is about 300
miles. The letter [Hebrew: 'Sin'] denotes 300, not
3.]

[Footnote 182: In the Middle Ages the Fayum was wrongly
called Pithom. E. Naville has identified the ruins of
Tell-el-Maskhuta near Ismailieh with Pithom, the treasure
city mentioned in Exodus i. 11. Among the buildings,
grain-stores have been discovered in the form of deep
rectangular chambers without doors, into which the corn was
poured from above. These are supposed to date from the time
of Rameses II. See _The Store City of Pithom and the Route
of the Exodus_: A Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund. E.
Naville, 1885. The Fayum, or Marsh-district, owes its
extraordinary fertility to the Bahr Yussuf (Joseph's Canal).

The Arab story is that when Joseph was getting old the
courtiers tried to bring about his disgrace by inducing
Pharaoh to set him what appeared to be an impossible task,
viz. to double the revenues of the province within a few
years. Joseph accomplished the task by artificially adapting
a natural branch of the Nile so as to give the district the
benefit of the yearly overflow. The canal thus formed, which
is 207 miles in length, was called after Joseph. The
storehouses of Joseph are repeatedly mentioned