25.

There is another canal also, which empties itself into the Red Sea, or Arabian Gulf, near the city Arsinoë, which some call Cleopatris.843 It flows through the Bitter Lakes, as [Pg 244]
[CAS. 804]they are called, which were bitter formerly, but when the above-mentioned canal was cut, the bitter quality was altered by their junction with the river, and at present they contain excellent fish, and abound with aquatic birds.

The canal was first cut by Sesostris before the Trojan times, but according to other writers, by the son of844 Psammitichus, who only began the work, and afterwards died; lastly, Darius the First succeeded to the completion of the undertaking, but he desisted from continuing the work, when it was nearly finished, influenced by an 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 Ptolemaïc kings however did cut through it, and placed locks upon the canal,845 so that they sailed, when they pleased, without obstruction into the outer sea, and back again [into the canal].

We have spoken of the surfaces of bodies of water in the first part of this work.846