*

sume to be the same as Remeses II., fitted out long vessels on the Red Sea, and was the first who went beyond the straits into the Indian Ocean. Diodorus says they amounted to no less a number than 400, and the historian supposes him to have been the first monarch who built ships of war; though merchant vessels, as I have before observed, were probably used by the Egyptians at a much earlier period. And we may reasonably conclude the fleet to have been connected with the Indian trade, as well as the canal he cut from the Nile to what is now called the Gulf of Sooéz.t

This canal commenced about twelve miles to the N. E. of the modern town of Belbays +, called by the Romans Bubastis Agria, and after following a direction nearly E. for about thirty-three miles, it turned to the S. S. E., and continued about sixty-three more in that line to the extremity of the Arabian Gulf. Several monarchs are reputed to have been the authors of this grand and useful undertaking; some writers attributing it to Sesostris, others to Neco, and its completion to Darius and Ptolemy Philadelphus. Pliny, indeed, supposes it never to have been finished, and states, that after it had reached the bitter springs (lakes), the canal was abandoned from fear of the greater height of the Red Sea§: but it is evident that it

Or ships of war.

Strabo, Pliny, and Aristotle attribute its commencement to Sesostris.

Strabo says "it began at the village of Phaccusa, which is near to that of Philon." (lib. xvii.)

Plin. vi. c. 29. s. 33., and Aristot. Meteorol. lib. i. c. 14. Diodorus says that Darius was prevented from completing it, owing to the greater height of the Red Sea; but that the 2d Ptolemy obviated this objection by means of sluices. (i. 33.) Vide Egypt and Thebes, pp. 320, 321.

was completed, and there is reason to believe even as early as the reign of the second Remeses; nor is it improbable that the captives he had taken in war assisted in the construction* of this noble work. But the vicinity of the sands, amidst which it was excavated, necessarily prevented it from remaining in a proper condition without constant attention; and we can easily conceive that, in the time of Neco and of the Ptolemies, it was found necessary to re-open it, before it could be again applied to the use for which it was intended.t

Herodotus says t, it was commenced by Neco, who lived about the year 610 before our era; that it was four days' journey in length, and broad enough to admit two triremes abreast; and that it began a little above Bubastis, and entered the sea near the town of Patumos (Pa or Pi-Thom); and since Diodorus § says its mouth was close to the port of Arsinoe ||, this last may have succeeded to the old town mentioned by Herodotus. Some have reckoned its length at upwards of 1000 stadia; its breadth at 100 cubits, or, according to Pliny ¶, 100 feet, and its depth forty; and he reckons thirty-seven Roman miles from its western entrance to the bitter lakes. Six-score thousand Egyptians were said to have perished in the undertaking**; but this is very

* Herodotus (ii. 108.) says that Sesostris employed his prisoners to cut the canals of Egypt.

+ It is evident that it entered the sea very near the modern town of Sooéz.

Herodot. ii, 158.

Diod. i. 33.

Strabo calls it " Arsinoe, or, as some style it, Cleopatris.” lib. xvii.

Plin. vi. s. 33.

**Diodor. loc. cit.

incredible; nor can we even believe that the lives of the captives taken in war, who were probably employed in the more arduous parts of this as of other similar works, were so inhumanly and unnecessarily thrown away. At the mouth of the canal were sluices, by which it was opened or closed according to circumstances; and thus, at one period of the year, the admission of the sea water into the canal was regulated, as the Nile water was prevented, during the inundation, from discharging itself too rapidly from the canal into the sea. Though filled with sand, its direction is still easily traced, as well from the appearance of its channel, as from the mounds and vestiges of ancient towns upon its banks, in one of which I found a monument bearing the sculptures and name of Remeses II.-the more satisfactory, as being a strong proof of its having existed at least as early as the reign of that monarch. After the time of the Ptolemies and Cæsars, it was again neglected, and suffered to go to decay; but on the revival of trade with India, this line of communication from the Red Sea to the Nile was once more proposed, the canal was re-opened by the Caliphs, and it continued to be used and kept in repair till the commerce of Alexandria was ruined by the discovery of the passage round the Cape.

Herodotus also tells us that Sesostris was the only king who ruled in Ethiopia*, but his assertion is contradicted by the monuments which still exist there.

The family of Remeses II., by his two wives,

*This may refer to the original Sesostris, above mentioned. There is, perhaps, some analogy between this name and that of Osirtasen.

*

was numerous, consisting of twenty-three sons and three daughters, whose names and figures are introduced in the Memnonium.

The duties of children were always more severe in the East than among any European people, and to the present day a son is not expected to sit in the presence of his father without express permission. Those of the Egyptian princes were equally austere. One of their offices was "fanbearer on the left of the king," and they were also obliged to carry the monarch in his palanquin or chair of state. As fanbearers, they attended him while seated on his throne, or in processions to the temples; and in this capacity they followed his chariot on foot as he celebrated his triumphant return from battle. Nor did they lay aside their insignia of office in time of war; and sometimes in the heat of battle, whether mounted in cars or engaged on foot, they carried them in their hand or slung behind them; and, as a distinguishing mark of princely rank, they wore a badge depending from the side of the head, perhaps intended to cover and enclose the lock of hair, which, among the Egyptians, was the sign of extreme youth, and the usual emblem of the god Harpocrates.

The reign of Remeses the Great was long and prosperous; nor does the period of sixty-six years appear too much, when we consider the extent of his conquests, and the many grand monuments he erected in every part of Egypt, after his

The names of the daughters are omitted. The families in the East are frequently mentioned by ancient authors as being very numerous. Artaxerxes had 153 children; Rehoboam begat 28 sons and 60 daughters. + Vide Plate I.

victorious return. Indeed, the number I have stated is derived from the authority of Manetho; and in the monuments, we have already met with the date of his 62d year. The extensive additions to the great temples of Karnak and Luqsor, where two beautiful obelisks of red granite, bearing his name, proclaim the wonderful skill of the Egyptians in sculpturing * those hard materials the elegant palace-temple of the Memnonium, and many other edifices at Thebes and Abydus: the temples hewn in the hard gritstone rock of Aboosimbel: those erected at Dayr, Sabooa, and Gerf Hossayn in Nubia: the obelisks at Tanis, and vestiges of ruins there and in other parts of the Delta, — bear ample testimony to the length of time required for their execution: and from these we may infer a proportionate number founded or enlarged by him at Memphis †, and other of the principal cities, whose sites are now unknown or concealed by mounds.

Besides his military exploits, another very remarkable event is said ‡ to have distinguished his reign; the partition of the lands among the peasants §, who were required to pay a fixed tax to the government, according to the extent of the property they obtained. But that this division could have been the origin of land surveying, as Herodotus sup

Many of the hieroglyphics are two inches deep. One of the obelisks has been removed to Paris; the other is said to be ceded to the city of Marseilles.

+ At Memphis, a Colossus, and fragments of several statues, bearing his name, are still met with.

Vide infrà, chap. iv. under " Different Lawgivers."

Herodot. ii. 109.