the site of which lies in the neighbourhood of Toussun and Serapeum, between the Bitter Lakes and Lake Tinseh.  At that date the Red Sea reached much farther inland than it does now, and was called in the upper portion the Heroopolite Gulf.  The expanse of brackish water, now known as the Bitter Lakes, was then, in all probability, directly connected with the Red Sea.  The length of this canal, according to Pliny, was sixty-two miles, or about fifty-seven English miles.  This length, allowing for the sinuosity of the valley traversed, agrees with the distance between the site of old Bubastis and the present head of the Bitter Lakes.  The length given by Herodotus of more than one thousand stadia (114 miles) must be understood to include the whole distance between the two seas, both by the Nile and by the canal.  Herodotus relates that it cost the lives of 120,000 men to cut the canal.  He says that the undertaking was abandoned because of a warning from an oracle that the barbarians alone, meaning the Persians, would benefit by the success of the enterprise.

[Illustration:  251.jpg HIEROGLYPHIC RECORD OF AN ANCIENT CANAL]

The true reason for relinquishing the plan probably was that the Egyptians believed the Red Sea to have been higher in altitude than the Nile.  They feared that if the canal were opened between the Nile and the Red Sea the salt water would flow in and make the waters of the Nile brackish.  This explanation would indicate a lack of knowledge of locks and sluices on the part of the Egyptians.

The work of Necho was continued by Darius, the son of Hystaspes (520 B.C.).  The natural channel of communication between the Heroopolite Gulf and the Red Sea had begun to fill up with silt even in the time of Necho, and a hundred years later, in the time of Darius, was completely blocked, so that it had to be entirely cleaned out to render it navigable.  The traces of this canal can still be plainly seen in the neighbourhood of Shaluf, near the south end of the Bitter Lakes.  The present fresh-water canal was also made to follow its course for some distance between that point and Suez.  Persian monuments have been found by Lepsius in the neighbourhood, commemorating the work of Darius.  On one of these the name of Darius is written in the Persian cuneiform characters, and on a cartouche in the Egyptian form.  Until this date it therefore appears that ships sailed up the Pelusiac branch of the Nile to Bubastis, and thence along the canal to Heroopolis, where the cargoes were transhipped to the Red Sea.  This inconvenient transfer of cargoes was remedied by the next Egyptian sovereign, who bestowed much care on the water connection between the two seas.

Ptolemy Philadelphus (285 B.C.), in addition to cleaning out and thoroughly restoring the two canals, joined the fresh-water canal with the Heroopolite Gulf by means of a lock and sluices, which permitted the passage of vessels, and were effective in preventing the salt water from mingling with the fresh water.  At the point where the canal joined the Heroopolite Gulf to the Red Sea, Ptolemy founded the town of Arsinoe, a little to the north of the modern Suez.