DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11636#0117
akd lower egypt.
CHAP. VIL
Deserts of Libya—Coasts of Egypt-—Towers of the
-Arabs—Landing at Alexandria—Its ports—Its
commerce—-rGlimpse of the city of Alexandria.
Wh en in going before the wind eastward, in
sight of the coast of Africa, you have passed
Derna *, where vessels loaded by the Turks some-
times stop, there remains, up to Alexandria, a long
extent of shore entirely unknown. It is in the
midst of those burning plains of Libya, a domain
never to be rescued from sterility, that we are to
look for the western boundaries of Egypt; boun-
daries left undetermined from the remotest an-
tiquity. Disputes had arisen between the two co-
lonies settled on the banks of the lake Mareotis,
now dried up, respecting the confines of Egypt
and Libya ; they consulted the oracle of Jupiter-
Ammon ; his decision was, as Herodotus relates,
that all the country which the Nile inundated, by
its overflowing, should belong to the former of
these two countries ; a very uncertain line of de-
markation, as it depended on the greater or less
degree of labour and industry employed to convey
the waters of the river to different distances. Of
* Probably the Dcrrkis extraxa of Strabo and Ptolomy.
what
CHAP. VIL
Deserts of Libya—Coasts of Egypt-—Towers of the
-Arabs—Landing at Alexandria—Its ports—Its
commerce—-rGlimpse of the city of Alexandria.
Wh en in going before the wind eastward, in
sight of the coast of Africa, you have passed
Derna *, where vessels loaded by the Turks some-
times stop, there remains, up to Alexandria, a long
extent of shore entirely unknown. It is in the
midst of those burning plains of Libya, a domain
never to be rescued from sterility, that we are to
look for the western boundaries of Egypt; boun-
daries left undetermined from the remotest an-
tiquity. Disputes had arisen between the two co-
lonies settled on the banks of the lake Mareotis,
now dried up, respecting the confines of Egypt
and Libya ; they consulted the oracle of Jupiter-
Ammon ; his decision was, as Herodotus relates,
that all the country which the Nile inundated, by
its overflowing, should belong to the former of
these two countries ; a very uncertain line of de-
markation, as it depended on the greater or less
degree of labour and industry employed to convey
the waters of the river to different distances. Of
* Probably the Dcrrkis extraxa of Strabo and Ptolomy.
what