Chap. 12. (11.)—The Coasts of Arabia, Situate on the Egyptian Sea

Beyond the Pelusiac Mouth is Arabia, which extends to the Red Sea, and joins the Arabia known by the surname of Happy, so famous for its perfumes and its wealth. This is called Arabia of the Catabanes, the Esbonitæ, and the Scenitæ; it is remarkable for its sterility, except in the parts where it joins up to Syria, and it has nothing remarkable in it except Mount Casius. The Arabian nations of the Canchlæi join these on the east, and, on the south the Cedrei, both of which peoples are adjoining to the Nabatæi. The two gulfs of the Red Sea, where it borders upon Egypt, are called the Heroöpolitic and the Ælanitic. Between the two towns of Ælana and Gaza upon our sea, there is a distance of 150 miles. Agrippa says that Arsinoë, a town on the Red Sea, is, by way of the desert, 125 miles from Pelusium. How different the characteristics impressed by nature upon two places separated by so small a distance!