king of Colchos, predicted to the Argonauts the events which would accompany their return.  Argus, one of the Argonauts, explained that prediction to his companions, and told them, that the route which they must keep was described on tables, or rather on columns, which an Egyptian conqueror had before left in the city of Oca, the capital of Colchis; on these columns, the whole extent of the roads, and the limits of the land and sea were marked out.  An ingenious, and by no means an improbable inference, has been drawn from this circumstance:  that if Sesostris left such columns in a part so remote from Egypt, it is to be supposed that they were more numerous in Egypt itself.  In short, though on a point like this it is impossible to gain clear and undoubted testimony, we are, upon the whole, strongly disposed to coincide in opinion with Gibbon, that tradition has some colour of reason for affirming that the Egyptian colony at Phasis possessed geographical maps.

After the death of Sesostris, the Egyptians seem to have relapsed into their former dislike to the sea:  they indeed sent colonies into Greece, and other parts; but these colonists kept up no relation with the mother country.  Their commerce was carried on, as it had been before the time of Sesostris, by foreigners.  The Old Testament informs us, that in the time of Solomon many horses were brought from Egypt:  and, from the same authority, as well as from Herodotus and Homer, we learn that the Phoenicians carried on a regular and lucrative traffic with this country; and, indeed, for a long time, about this period, they were the only nation to whom the ports of Egypt were open.  Of the navigation and commerce of the Red Sea they were equally negligent; so that while none of their ships were seen on it, it was covered with the fleets of the Syrians, Phoenicians, and other nations.

Bocchoris, who lived about seven hundred years before Christ, is represented by historians as having imitated the maxims of Sesostris, with respect to maritime affairs and commerce.  Some of his laws on these subjects are still extant; and they display his knowledge of, and attention to, the improvement of his kingdom.  By some of his immediate successors the ancient maxims of the Egyptians, which led them to avoid intercourse with strangers, were gradually done away; but it is to Psammeticus, historians ascribe the most decisive measures for rooting out this antipathy.  In his reign the ports of Egypt were first opened to foreign ships generally.  He seems particularly to have encouraged commercial intercourse with the Greeks; though afterwards, either from some particular cause of jealousy or dislike to this nation, or from the still operating antipathy of the Egyptians to foreigners, the Greeks were not permitted to enter any port except Naucratis, which they had been suffered to build for the residence of their merchants and convenience of their trade.  This city lay on the Canopic branch of the Nile; and if a vessel entered any other mouth of this river, the master was obliged to return to the Canopic branch; or, if the wind did not permit this, to unlade his vessel, and send his merchandize to Naucratis by the country boats.