y cities against the inroads of the Blemmyes and other Arabs.

To this survey we must add the valuable geographical knowledge given
by Arrian in his voyage round the shores of the Red Sea, which has come
down to us in an interesting document, wherein he mentions the several
seaports and their distances, with the tribes and cities near the
coast. The trade of Egypt to India, Ethiopia, and Arabia was then most
valuable, and carried on with great activity; but, as the merchandise
was in each case carried only for short distances from city to city, the
traveller could gain but little knowledge of where it came from, or even
sometimes of where it was going.

[Illustration: 115.jpg STATUE OF THE NILE]

The Egyptians sent coarse linen, glass bottles, brazen vessels, brass
for money, and iron for weapons of war and hunting; and they received
back ivory, rhinoceros' teeth, Indian steel, Indian ink, silks, slaves,
tortoise-shell, myrrh, and other scents, with many other Eastern
articles of high price and little weight. The presents which the
merchants made to the petty kings of Arabia were chiefly horses, mules,
and gold and silver vases. Beside this, the ports on the Red Sea carried
on a brisk trade among themselves in grain, expressed oil, wicker
boats, and sugar. Of sugar, or honey from the cane, this is perhaps
the earliest mention found in history; but Arrian does not speak of
the sugar-cane as then new, nor does he tell us where it was grown. Had
sugar been then seen for the first time he would certainly have said
so; it must have been an article well known in the Indian trade. While
passing through Egypt on his travels, or while living there and holding
some post under the prefect, the historian Arrian has left us his name
and a few lines of poetry carved on the foot of the great sphinx near
the pyramids.

At this time also the travellers continued to carve their names and
their feelings of wonder on the foot of the musical statue at Thebes and
in the deep empty tombs of the Theban kings. These inscriptions are full
of curious information. For example, it has been doubted whether the
Roman army was provided with medical officers. Their writers have not
mentioned them. But part of the Second Legion was at this time stationed
at Thebes; and one Asclepiades, while cutting his name in a tomb which
once held some old Theban, has cleared up the doubt for us, by saying
that he was physician to the Second Legion.

Antoninus m