EXCURSUS ON II. 149. THE researches of modern travellers in the neighbourhood of the Lake Moris, prove beyond all doubt that the lake itself is the work of nature, although advantage was taken of its situation to construct works of a gigantic size for the purpose of artificial irrigation. Strabo appears never for a moment to have supposed it an excavation. He rather inclines to the belief that it, as well as the neighbourhood of the temple of Ammon, at one time was reached by the sea, and he points attention particularly to the beaches existing by the side of it, resembling those on the shore of the latter'. In his time there was an entrance from the Nile just above Memphis into a canal which ran parallel to the river on its western bank. This channel - which, at least in a portion of its extent, exists at the present day under the name of the Bahr el Youssouf (Joseph's River)-skirted the brow upon which the pyramids are placed, and constituted the western boundary of an island formed by the Nile and two branches of the canal. This island was either the whole or a large portion of the Heracleotic nome'. From the main 1 Θαυμαστὴν δὲ καὶ τὴν λίμνην ἔχει τὴν Μοίριδος καλουμένην πελαγίαν τῷ μεγέθει καὶ τῇ χρόᾳ θαλαττοειδῆ· καὶ τοὺς αἰγιαλοὺς δέ ἐστιν ὁρᾶν ἐοικότας τοῖς θαλαττίοις· ὡς ὑπονοεῖν τὰ αὐτὰ περὶ τῶν κατὰ ̓Αμμωνα τόπων καὶ τούτων (xvii. c. 1. p. 452). This refers to the opinion of STKATO, which he had mentioned before: τάχα δὴ καὶ τὸ τοῦ ̓Αμμωνος ἱερὸν πρότερον ἐπὶ τῆς θαλάττης ὂν, ἐκρύσεως γενομένης νῦν ἐν τῇ μεσογαίᾳ κεῖσθαι (i. c. 3. p. 79). 2 Δι' ἑνὸς ρείθρου τοῦ ποταμοῦ [i.e. Νείλον] φερομένου, πλὴν εἰ μή που τις ἐντρέχει νῆσος· ὧν ἀξιολογωτάτη ἡ τὸν Ἡρακλεωτικὸν νομὸν περιέχουσα· ἢ εἴπου τις ἐκτροπὴ διώρυγι ἐπὶ πλέον εἰς λίμνην μεγάλην καὶ χώραν, ἣν ποτίζειν δύναται, καθάπερ ἐπὶ τῆς channel of the Bahr el Youssouf, in about latitude 29° 13', another branch turns off to the north-west through a break in the Libyan hills, near a place called Awarat el Macta, and enters, after a course of about eight geographical miles, a mountain basin with an area of something like 400 square miles, of which about 150 towards the north-west extremity is occupied by a lake, called from its shape Birket el Keroun (Horned Sea), thirty-five or thirty-six miles long, and in the average four broad. This piece of water is the natural lake Moris; its water is slightly brackish from the rains which wash the saline particles of the neighbouring soil into it, but not salt, for it contains fish of fresh-water species. The mountain basin is the Faioum, the Arsinoitan nome of which Strabo speaks as the most wonderful portion of Egypt, both as a sight, and for its fertility and its artificial arrangements. He remarks (a point which is especially to be observed) that with the exception of some gardens in the neighbourhood of Alexandria, it was the only site in Egypt where the olive flourished. This circumstance alone is a sufficient evidence that the irrigation must have been conducted on a different principle from that of merely allowing the waters of the river to overflow and cover the whole soil for a considerable period, after the ordinary practice of Egypt; for such a course would undoubtedly have prevented the growth of any thing but seed crops. And the existing state of the country seems to show that the arrangements which were made rested upon the principle of storing the water of the Nile at the time of the inundation in large canals at different levels within the mountain basin, the Birket el Keroun serving as a receptacle for the surplus of the whole. In the portion of the basin which is not occupied by the Birket el Keroun two distinct levels are traceable at the present day. The upper of these, comprising a space of 140 square miles, is only six feet higher than the bottom of the Bahr el Youssouf, and about twenty-four feet lower than its surface when full (taking the level at the point where the canal enters the Faioum, which is not τὸν ̓Αρσινοΐτην νομὸν ποιούσης καὶ τὴν Μοίριδος λίμνην (xvii. p. 419). Εἶθ' ὁ Ἡρακλεώτης νομὸς ἐν νήσῳ μεγάλῃ, καθ ̓ ἣν ἡ διώρυξ ἐστὶν ἐν δεξιᾷ, εἰς τὴν Λιβύην ἐπὶ τὸν Αρσινοΐτην νομὸν [forte supplendum φερομένη] ὥστε καὶ δίστομον εἶναι τὴν διώρυγα, μεταξὺ μέρους τινὸς τῆς νήσου παρεμπίπτοντος (ib. p. 451). 3 Αξιολογώτατος τῶν ἁπάντων κατά τε τὴν ὄψιν καὶ τὴν ἀρετὴν καὶ τὴν κατασκευήν. perceptibly different from its level at Medineh, a place six miles further in the direction of the lake), and it is covered with a sedimentary deposit of Nile mud from 18 to 22 feet thick. But at some short distance from Medineh the ground slopes gently to north and south, and more rapidly to the west, the surface of the lake itself being about sixty feet below the bottom of the canal, and from 130 to 170 feet below the surface of the Nile. Very near Medineh is supposed to have been the site of Arsinoë or Crocodilopolis. If these levels are correctly given, it is quite clear, that in the system of irrigation pursued, the prime feeder must have been the diverging branch of the Bahr el Youssouf above described, reckoned from the point where it turns to the north-west to Medineh, a distance in the whole of about fourteen miles, six of which lie within the expanse of the mountain basin. This branch is at present estimated to convey one twenty-eighth portion of the water which passes in the bed of the Nile. Its mean depth is 30 feet and its breadth 160. Just as it enters the basin, it probably discharged a portion of its water into another canal on a lower level, also still traceable. This second canal, which goes by the name of Bahr bela ma (Waterless River), it being now mainly dry, starts in a northerly direction, and conducts, by a circuitous route of several miles, to the north-east extremity of the Birket el Keroun. Throughout its course there are said still to exist traces of ancient dams and sluices; and as its breadth is nearly 300 feet, and its depth 21, it must have been capable of holding a very large quantity of water. Another nullah, similar to the Bahr bela ma, and varying from 600 to 1200 feet in breadth, is traceable in a north-westerly direction from a point ten miles to the south-west of Awarat el Macta, and joining the Birket el Keroun by a small channel, at a point where the sides are rocky, after a course of fourteen or fifteen miles. It goes by the name of Bahr el Wadi (the River of the Plain). Unfortunately, its precise level is not given; but it is obvious from the description, that it is lower than the Bahr el Youssouf, and higher than the Birket el Keroun. That it belonged to the arrangements for irrigation appears from the fact, that WILKINSON discovered its bottom to be cut in the limestone rock at a place where the breadth was 673 feet'. This is given on the authority of the Chevalier BUNSEN. The levels and positions VOL. I. Ꭱ Ꮁ Various other traces of channels are described as existing in this singular region; but the above-mentioned are sufficient to explain the principle which prevailed in the irrigation. It being perfectly clear that the water could never have been returned from the Birket el Keroun, or indeed from any portion of the works back into the Nile, the real problem is to explain how what really took place can have been so regarded as to give rise to the descriptions of Herodotus and Strabo. Now Strabo appears to have regarded the Bahr bela ma and Bahr el Wadi as two branches of one and the same canal, by the former of which the water was conveyed to the Birket el Keroun at the time of the inundation, while to the other it was supplied from that lake while the waters were falling (èv rŷ åñoßáσei). In this definition of the time his main error lies. The Bahr el Wadi, if originally a reservoir for irrigating the lowest portion of the plain (as its name seems to suggest), would not improbably be filled from the lake when this had risen beyond a few feet. As soon as the rising of the waters had ceased the sluices would be shut, and the water remain stored in a broad but not deep canal, having no doubt many small branches, -as was the case also with the Bahr bela ma, and the main stem of the duópuέ running up to Medineh. The only remaining difficulty in Strabo's description is the connexion which he implies between the Bahr el Wadi and the Spvg. But this is a very slight one. We must conceive him standing at Arsinoë (Medineh), by the side of the pool, where he gives the graphic description of his seeing the sacred crocodile fed, which was probably the head of the dupvg. His host would point out to him the Bahr bela ma stretching away to the NN. E. and tell him that it entered the lake some fifteen or sixteen laid down in this note are taken from the essay on the Lake Moeris contained in his work Ægyptens Stelle in der Weltgeschichte, vol. ii. pp. 209-232. The modern authorities on which he rests are LINANT DE BELLEFONDS, in a memoir read at the Egyptian Society in Cairo on the 6th of July, 1842; JOMARD, Mémoire sur le Lac Mæris; and personal communications to himself from PERRING and WILKINSON. 5 xvii. c. i. p. 454, ἡ δ ̓ οὖν Μοίριδος λίμνη διὰ τὸ μέγεθος καὶ τὸ βάθος ἱκανή ἐστι κατά τε τὰς ἀναβάσεις τὴν πλημμυρίδα φέρειν καὶ μὴ ὑπερπολάζειν εἰς τὰ οἰκούμενα καὶ πεφυτεύμενα, εἶτα ἐν τῇ ἀποβάσει τὸ πλεονάζον ἀποδοῦσα τῇ αὐτῇ διώρυγι κατὰ θάτερον τῶν στομάτων ἔχειν ὑπολειπόμενον τὸ χρήσιμον πρὸς τὰς ἐποχετείας καὶ αὐτὴ καὶ ἡ διώρυξ. ταῦτα μὲν φυσικά· ἐπίκειται δὲ τοῖς στόμασιν ἀμφοτέροις τῆς διώρυγος κλεῖθρα, οἷς ταμιεύουσιν οἱ ἀρχιτέκτονες τό τε εἰσρέον ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ ἐκρέον. 6 xvii. c. i. p. 455. he would see the miles off by a sluice. Similarly towards the N. w. Bahr el Wadi (which he would be told was supplied from the lake by similar sluices) apparently running towards the duópvg on which he had himself been towed to Arsinoë, and from which he might have seen the Bahr bela ma diverge as he came. The distance from which he would have a view of the object would be not less than eight or nine miles, and the difference of level not more than ninety feet at the very utmost. This of course would be entirely imperceptible by the eye at such a distance. The account given by Herodotus is much more strikingly at variance with the natural phenomena; but much of the difficulty here will disappear if we suppose him to have visited the district very soon after the inundation was at its height, and while the waters were let out over a large portion of the basin; Strabo, on the other hand, having certainly been at Arsinoë at the season when these were confined to the canals. The fluid was retained on the different levels by dams, the existence of some of which is even now traceable. Seen from any point between Arsinoë and the Labyrinth, the whole would appear like one enormous expanse of water, the difference of the levels not showing itself. And if we suppose Herodotus to have had the view of the district thus covered from the top of the Labyrinth, his description is intelligible enough. The indisputable evidence of its natural origin which the outline of the lake presented to Strabo would be entirely masked; its enormous seeming magnitude, apparently coextensive with the basin of the Faioum, would render the dimensions assigned to it not prima facie absurd'; and, 100 stadia off, the colossi at Crocodilopolis would appear to stand out from the middle of the water. To these circumstances must be added the impression that the Faioum irrigation was the same simple process with which he was familiar in the neighbourhood of the Nile, and the fact that at the point where he was no part of the works was visible, but the main Suópug with the Nile water flowing through it. And, finally, we may reasonably conceive that the dragoman, accustomed to the spectacle before the eyes of his companion, would not even think of the necessity of explaining to him the peculiar circum 7 The circumference of the lake itself is estimated roughly at 75 or 80 geographical miles. Herodotus makes it 3600 stades, about five times as much. |