CONCERNING ANCIENT INDIA. 39

have been conveyed to that capital wholly by SECTwater. But either on account of some danger 1.apprehended from completing it, that work wasnever finished; or from the flow and dangerousnavigation towards the northerrxextremity of theRed Sea, this canal was found tc? be of so littleuse, that in order to facilitate the communicationwith India, he built a city on the west coast ofthat sea, almost under the Tropic , to which hegave the name of Berenice". This new city soonbecame the staple of the trade with India". FromBerenice the goods were transported by land toCoptos, a city three miles distant from the Nile,but which had a communication with that riverby a navigable canal, of which there are still someremains and thence carried down the stream toAlexandria. The distance between Berenice andCoptos was, according to Pliny, two hundredand fifty-eight Roman miles, and the road laythrough the desart of Thebais , almost entirelydestitute of water. But the attention of a power-ful monarch made provision for supplying thiswant, by searching for springs, and whereverthese were found he built inns, or more probablyin the eastern style caravanseras , for the accom-modation of merchants' 1 . In this channel theintercourse between the East and West continued

" Strabo, lib. xvii. 1x56. D. Plin. "Nat. Hist lib. vi.c. 29. " See NOTE XVI. *° D’Anville Mem.

de l’Egypte* p. 21. " Strabo, lib. xvii. p. itS7»

D. f.

D 4