Note 326 — Chapter IX
Reading edition
The truth about these ancient canals seems to be as follows:
1. According to Herodotus, Pharaoh Necho commenced one from the Nile to the Red Sea (ii. 158) which he says was completed by Darius the son of Hystaspes (iv. 39). This canal, we may fairly presume, was open when Herodotus was in Egypt, as he states it was four days’ journey in length, and wide enough for two small triremes to row abreast; it is doubtless the one attributed by Aristotle, Strabo, and Pliny to Sesostris—an identification confirmed by the fact that, in recent times, tablets bearing the name of Rameses (Sesostris) have been found on the site of its present dried up bed. As far as can be now ascertained, it would seem that this canal left the Nile at or near the city of Bubastis (now Tel Basta). The discovery of a Cuneiform inscription of Darius near Suez, gives colour also to the traditional story which refers to him. Diodorus, notices the proverbial opinion of the height of the waters of the Red Sea (i. 33) and adds, that this canal was completed by Ptolemy when he built Arsinoe.
2. There is no doubt that this canal continued in some use under the Roman Emperors, as Trajan formed a new connection for it by a cutting at Babylon (Old Cairo) (Ptol. Geogr. iv. s. 54), and, further, Sir Gardner Wilkinson has shown that the whole line from the Nile to the Gulf was restored by the Khalif Omar, and was in use for a century and a half after his time. The work of Necho appears also to have included a canal from the head of the gulf to the Pelusiac mouth of the Nile, as of this considerable remains still exist.
3. It may be further remarked, that the bed of the Bitter Lakes was, even in the time of Strabo (xvii. p. 804), filled with Nile water, as the same fish were noticed in both. At the same time, we may be sure that nothing like a ship (in our sense of the word) ever passed through the isthmus until M. de Lesseps completed his great work.