8

appear to be any distinct account of the direct line of na­vigation which the antients possessed between the two seas. Their line of communication, of which we have good testi­mony, existed through the medium of the Nile, and fol­lowed the line coloured with carmine on the Map, viz. from Suez to Serapeum, and thence westward thirty-nine miles to Abaceh, by a canal through the Wadis of Subabyar and Tomilat; and, lastly, from Abaceh across the Delta twelve miles to Bubastes on the Nile by a canal.

The Long Valley comprising the Wadis above men­tioned, extending in an east and west direction from Sera­peum to Abaceh, is subject to be inundated by the floods of the Nile, though on ordinary occasions it is protected by three artificial mounds run across it, one at either ex­tremity and another in the middle. Notwithstanding these,'in the great flood of the year 1800, the waters of the Nile burst the two westernmost bounds and flowed to Serapeum, inundating the valley to a depth of 25 feet; and had the easternmost barrier yielded like the others, the flood of the river would have filled the basin of the Bitter Lake, and overflowed from thence to Lake Menzaleh, on one hand, and to Suez on the other. So it is not with­out reason, some have supposed, that in remote times a Serapiac branch of the Nile flowed through this great valley (alleged to be the land of Goshen of Scripture), since, if all the artificial barriers were removed, the Nile, on rising to a particular height of its flood, would now exhibit such a branch during a certain period of every year.

Egypt of the Jewish scriptures, and which certainly could not apply to the Nile.

From Herodotus, it would seem that the division between Asia and Africa was stated by some authors as being marked by a river ; and though it is clear the Nile could not answer as the boundary line, such a salt water river would be a most appropriate one.