Note 299 — THE HEBREW TRADITION.

Letronne, in this treatise mentioned, has further attempted to show that the connecting canal between the Nile and the Red Sea continued till about the third century after Christ, but was then interrupted until it was re-opened by the Caliph ʾOmar in the year 639. Since that time it continued till the year 762 or 767, when the canal was designedly filled up by the Caliph El Mansur. The ingenious combinations by which Letronne assumes that the canal was filled up with sand, about the time of Septim. Severus, because at that time the Porphyry quarries of Gebel Dochân appear to have been neglected, is not, however, a sufficient reason for this conclusion. The canal might easily have been deepened again, as in the time of ʾOmar, and many other reasons might be given for the neglect of the stone-quarries in the Red Sea. But there is a positive proof against it in Ibn el Maqrizi (Notices et Extr. des MSS. tom. vi. p. 337, 366), where it is said, according to Langlès: Hadrien dirigea ensuite sa marche vers l’Egypte, où il fit recreuser le canal qui allait du Nil à la mer de Qolzoum; les vaisseaux y passaient encore à l’apparition de l’islamisme: c’est le même que ʾAmrou ben el-ʾAss fit nettoyer; and farther on (p. 340), where Amru says: Je sais qu’avant l’islamisme, des vaisseaux amenaient chez nous des marchandises de l’Egypte. Depuis que nous avons fait la conquête de ce pays, cette communication est interrompue; le canal est encombré et les marchands en ont abandonné la navigation. It is evident from this, that the canal during the rising of the Arabs, shortly before the Egyptian conquest, had been designedly filled up by the Egyptians as an inimical and prudential measure, for the same reason that it was afterwards again filled up by the Caliph El Mansur, when Mohammet ben ʾAbdallah rose against him at Medina, in the year 762 (according to others 767). The year also of its restoration appears to me still doubtful. Maqrizi, indeed, says (p. 334): Lorsque le Très-Haut accorda l’islamisme aux hommes, et que ʾAmrou ben el-ʾAss fit la conquête de l’Egypte, ce général, d’après l’ordre de ʾOmar ben âl-Khaththâb, prince des fidèles, s’occupa de faire recreuser de canal dans l’année de la mortalité. This famine year was certainly the year 18 after the flight of the prophet—i. e. A.D. 639. But in the same year Egypt was also conquered, and it is not very probable that cutting the canal, which would occupy six months, was the first and immediate undertaking of the conqueror, although it was undoubtedly soon called for by the famine in Arabia, which made it necessary to import provisions from Egypt. From the words of Amru also, quoted above, there appears to have been a longer period between the conquest and the cleaning out the canal. I, therefore, think that we ought rather to follow the defined statement of El-Kendi, who is cited by Maqrizi himself (p. 343), and who wrote about 880. He places the restoration of the canal five years later—namely, in the year 23; i. e. 644, the last year of Amru. For the history of the canal, compare, besides the treatises of Letronne which we have cited, what the same scholar said at a former time in his edition of the Dicuil. 1814, 8vo, p. 10, &c., and in his translation of the 17th book of Strabo, p. 382; also Mannert, Geogr. von Africa, Abth. i. p. 503, &c., and Weil, Gesch. der Chalifen, Bd. i. p. 119, &c.; the last of whom likewise places the restoration of the canal after 641.

The result we have arrived at with regard to the whole history of this remarkable connecting canal is, therefore, briefly, the following:

c. 1350 B.C. Ramses II. (Sesostris) digs the canal from Bubastis to Heroonpolis (Mukfâr, near Seba-Biar), and with the assistance of the Israelites builds near it the towns Pithom and Ramses.

c. 600 B.C. Nekô appears to have conducted the canal as far as the Bitter lakes.

c. 500 B.C. Darius, for the first time, makes the whole connection, since he cuts through the elevation between the Bitter lakes and the sea.

c. 350 B.C. In the time of Aristotle the canal appears to have fallen into disuse.

c. 250 B.C. Ptolemæus Philadelphus digs a wide canal, amnis Ptolemæus, from the sea to the Bitter lakes, constructs an artificial sluice, and builds Arsinoë on the sea.

c. 100 A.D. Trajan opens a new canal, amnis Traianus, from Babylon to Heroonpolis.

643 (644) A.D. ʾOmar re-opens the interrupted connection.

762 (767) A.D. Mohammet ben ʾAbdallah fills up the canal.