INLAND NAVIGATION.

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probably some share in the neglect of it; but it was again opened in theyear 63 under the Caliph Omar. Elmacin, indeed, fays that a newcanal was then made for the conveyance of the corn of Egypt to Arabia:but this is more naturally to be understood of the renewal of the ancientone, the navigation of which, towards the decline of the Roman empire,had been much neglected. The fame author adds, that it was stoppedagain at the end next the Red Sea, by the Caliph Abugiafor Almanzor,the second of the family of Abbas, in the year of the Iiegira 150, an-swering to the year of Christ 775. There are some traces of it still sub-sisting. M. Boutier in 1707 discovered the end which rises out of themost easterly branch of the Nile.

Abulfeda thus describes the beauty of the canal of Faoua : " No pro-spect can be more enchanting or agreeable. Gardens, groves, and eternalverdure adorn its bailks, which are shaded by date trees, covered withvines, and embellished with pleasure houses.” The above canal was cutfrom the Nile to Alexandria by Ptolemy, to sill the immense cisterns,which are vaulted with great art, and constructed in all parts of that city.The numerous magnificent aqueducts are still almost entire, althoughthey are above two thousand years old: but they are now useless, as theyhave been for many ages..

Strabo tells us that the canal between Alexandria and Canopus, inwhich city was a temple of Serapis, was loaded night and day with boats,which carried religious votaries to the deity: this canal is now dry.Herodotus also fays that the stones for the building of the temple ofLatona in Egypt, were brought by rafts, down the canals of the riverNile, a distance of two hundred leagues. He measured one single stone,which was sixty feet square, and six feet thick: it was intended for apedestal for a column, fifty feet high, six feet diameter, and also cut outof a single block of stone.

The annual inundation of the Nile is the source of the fertility of

Egypt.