idires, at the very mouth of the Red Sea on a point of land where
Abyssinia is hardly more than fifteen miles from the opposite coast of
Arabia. This naming of cities after his mother and sisters was no idle
compliment; they probably received the crown revenues of those cities
for their personal maintenance.

With a view further to increase the trade with the East, Philadelphus
sent Dionysius on an expedition overland to India, to gain a knowledge
of the country and of its means and wants. He went by the way of the
Caspian Sea through Bactria, in the line of Alexander's march. He
dwelt there, at the court of the sovereign, soon after the time that
Megasthenes was there; and he wrote a report of what he saw and learned.
But it is sad to find, in our search for what is valuable in the history
of past times, that the information gained on this interesting journey
of discovery is wholly lost.

In the number of ports which were then growing into the rank of cities,
we see full proof of the great trade of Egypt at that time; and we may
form some opinion of the profit which was gained from the trade of the
Red Sea from the report of Clitarchus to Alexander, that the people of
one of the islands would give a talent of gold for a horse, so plentiful
with them was gold, and so scarce the useful animals of Europe; and one
of the three towns named after the late queen, on that coast, was known
by the name of the Nubian or Golden Berenice, from the large supply of
gold which was dug from the mines in the neighbourhood. In latitude 17 deg.,
separated from the Golden Berenice by one of the forests of Ethiopia,
was the new city of Ptolemais, which, however, was little more than a
post from which the hunting parties went out to catch elephants for
the armies of Egypt. Philadelphus tried to command, to persuade, and to
bribe the neighbouring tribes not to kill these elephants for food, but
they refused all treaty with him; these zealous huntsmen answered that,
if he offered them the kingdom of Egypt with all its wealth, they would
not give up the pleasure of catching and eating elephants. The Ethiopian
forests, however, were able to supply the Egyptian armies with about one
elephant for every thousand men, which was the number then thought best
in the Greek military tactics. Asia had been the only country from which
the armies had been supplied with elephants before Philadelphus brought
them from Ethiopia.

The temple of Isis among the