Histories

Herodotus

Herodotus. Godley, Alfred Denis, translator. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann, Ltd., 1920-1925 (printing).

And I think that their account of the country was true. For even if a man has not heard it before, he can readily see, if he has sense, that that Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt to which the Greeks sail is land deposited for the Egyptians, the river's gift—not only the lower country, but even the land as far as three days' voyage above the lake, which is of the same nature as the other, although the priests did not say this, too.

For this is the nature of the land of Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt: in the first place, when you approach it from the sea and are still a day's sail from land, if you let down a sounding line you will bring up mud from a depth of eleven fathoms. This shows that the deposit from the land reaches this far.

Further, the length of the seacoast of Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt itself is sixty “schoeni”[*](Literally “ropes.”) —of Egypt [30,27] (nation), Africa Egypt, that is, as we judge it to be, reaching from the Plinthinete gulf to the Serbonian marsh, which is under the Casian mountain—between these there is this length of sixty schoeni.