All the boats which are found in India and on this sea are not made in
the same manner as are other ships. For neither are they smeared with
pitch, nor with any other substance, nor indeed are the planks fastened
together by iron nails going through and through, but they are bound
together with a kind of cording. The reason is not as most persons
suppose, that there are certain rocks there which draw the iron to
themselves (for witness the fact that when the Roman vessels sail from
Aelas into this sea, although they are fitted with much iron, no such
thing has ever happened to them), but rather because the Indians and the
Aethiopians possess neither iron nor any other thing suitable for such
purposes. Furthermore, they are not even able to buy any of these things
from the Romans since this is explicitly forbidden to all by law; for
death is the punishment for one who is caught. Such then is the
description of the so-called Red Sea[26] and of the land which lies on
either side of it.

From the city of Auxomis to the Aegyptian boundaries of the Roman
domain, where the city called Elephantine is situated, is a journey of
thirty days for an unencumbered traveller. Within that space many
nations are settled, and among them the Blemyes and the Nobatae, who are
very large nations. But the Blemyes dwell in the central portion of the
country, while the Nobatae possess the territory about the River Nile.
Formerly this was not the limit of the Roman empire, but it lay beyond
there as far as one would advance in a seven days' journey; but the
Roman Emperor Diocletian came there, and observed that the tribute from
these places was of the smallest possible account, since the land is at
that point extremely narrow (for rocks rise to an exceedingly great
height at no great distance from the Nile and spread over the rest of
the country), while a very large body of soldiers had been stationed