land have their country measured by fathoms, those who are less poor by
furlongs, those who have much land by parasangs, and those who have
land in very great abundance by _schoines_: now the parasang is equal
to thirty furlongs, and each _schoine_, which is an Egyptian measure, is
equal to sixty furlongs. So there would be an extent of three thousand
six hundred furlongs for the coast-land of Egypt. From thence and as
far as Heliopolis inland Egypt is broad, and the land is all flat and
without springs of water and formed of mud: and the road as one goes
inland from the sea to Heliopolis is about the same in length as that
which leads from the altar of the twelve gods at Athens to Pisa and the
temple of Olympian Zeus: reckoning up you would find the difference
very small by which these roads fail of being equal in length, not more
indeed than fifteen furlongs; for the road from Athens to Pisa wants
fifteen furlongs of being fifteen hundred, while the road to Heliopolis
from the sea reaches that number completely. From Heliopolis however,
as you go up, Egypt is narrow; for on the one side a mountain-range
belonging to Arabia stretches along by the side of it, going in a
direction from the North towards the midday and the South Wind, tending
upwards without a break to that which is called the Erythraian Sea, in
which range are the stone-quarries which were used in cutting stone for
the pyramids at Memphis. On this side then the mountain ends where I
have said, and then takes a turn back; and where it is widest, as I was
informed, it is a journey of two months across from East to West;
and the borders of it which turn towards the East are said to produce
frankincense. Such then is the nature of this mountain-range; and on the
side of Egypt towards Libya another range extends, rocky and enveloped
in sand: in this are the pyramids, and it runs in the same direction
as those parts of the Arabian mountains which go towards the midday. So
then, I say, from Heliopolis the land has no longer a great extent so
far as it belongs to Egypt, and for about four days' sail up the