s
already made half of the Echinades from islands into mainland. Now there
is in the land of Arabia, not far from Egypt, a gulf of the sea running
in from that which is called the Erythraian Sea, very long and narrow,
as I am about to tell. With respect to the length of the voyage along
it, one who set out from the innermost point to sail out through it into
the open sea, would spend forty days upon the voyage, using oars; and
with respect to breadth, where the gulf is broadest it is half a day's
sail across: and there is in it an ebb and flow of tide every day. Just
such another gulf I suppose that Egypt was, and that the one ran in
towards Ethiopia from the Northern Sea, and the other, the Arabian,
of which I am about to speak, tended from the South towards Syria,
the gulfs boring in so as almost to meet at their extreme points, and
passing by one another with but a small space left between. If then the
stream of the Nile should turn aside into this Arabian gulf, what would
hinder that gulf from being filled up with silt as the river continued
to flow, at all events within a period of twenty thousand years? indeed
for my part I am of the opinion that it would be filled up even within
ten thousand years. How, then, in all the time that has elapsed before I
came into being should not a gulf be filled up even of much greater size
than this by a river so great and so active? As regards Egypt then, I
both believe those who say that things are so, and for myself also I am
strongly of opinion that they are so; because I have observed that Egypt
runs out into the sea further than the adjoining land, and that shells
are found upon the mountains of it, and an efflorescence of salt forms
upon the surface, so that even the pyramids are being eaten away by it,
and moreover that of all the mountains of Egypt, the range which lies
above Memphis is the only one which has sand: besides which I notice
that Egypt resembles neither the land of Arabia, which borders upon it,
nor Libya, nor yet Syria (for they are Syrians who dwell in the parts
of Arabia lying along the sea), but that it has soil which is black and
easily breaks up, seeing that it is in truth mud and silt brought down
from Ethiopia by the river: but the soil of Libya, we know, is reddish
in colour and rather sandy, while that of Arabia and Syria is somewhat
clayey and rocky. The priests also gave me a strong proof concerning
this land as follows, namely that in the reign of