[363] King of Egypt, who was said to have sacrificed all foreigners that visited the land.
[364] Perseus was the grandfather of Alemena, the mother of Hercules.
[365] About 183 miles. This city lay at the extreme west of Egypt, in Marmarica.
[366] “For some distance onward the engineers had erected a line of telegraph poles to guide us, but after they ceased the desert was absolutely trackless. Our guides were the stars—had the night been overcast the enterprise would have been impossible—and we were steered by a naval officer, Lieutenant Rawson, who had doubtless studied on previous nights the relation of these celestial beacons to the course of our march. The centre of the line was the point of direction; therefore he rode between the centre battalions (75th and 79th) of the Highland Brigade. Frequently in the course of the night, after duly ascertaining what dark figure I was addressing, I represented to him that his particular star was clouded over; but he always replied that he had another in view, a second string to his bow, which he showed me, and that he was convinced he had not deviated in the least from the proper direction. And he was right, his guidance was marvellously correct; for his reward, poor fellow, he was shot down in the assault, mortally wounded. Here we were adrift, but for the stars, in a region where no token existed on the surface by which to mark the course—any more than on the ocean without a compass—and the distance to be traversed was many miles.”—Sir Edward Hamley: “The Second Division at Tel-el-Kebir,” Nineteenth Century, December, 1882.
[367] Strabo (xvii. 1) quotes from Callisthenes, whose work on Alexander is lost. He agrees with Aristobulus about the two ravens. Callisthenes is also quoted by Plutarch (Alex., 27) in regard to this prodigy. Curtius (iv. 30) says that there were several ravens; and Diodorus (xvii. 49) speaks of ravens.
[368] Nearly five miles. Cf. Lucan, ix. 511-543.
[369] This Fountain of the Sun, as it is called, is 30 paces long and 20 broad; 6 fathoms deep, with bubbles constantly rising from the surface. Cf. Herodotus, iv. 181; Lucretius, vi. 849-878; Ptolemy, iv. 5, 37.
[370] This is what we call sal ammoniac, known to chemists as hydrochlorate of ammonia. The dactylos was the smallest Greek measure of length, about 7/10 of an inch.
[371] We learn from Strabo (xvii. 1), on the authority of Callisthenes, that the declaration of the oracle of Ammon was confirmed by those of Apollo at Branchidae near Miletus, and of Athena at Erythrae in Ionia. Plutarch (Alex., 28) and Arrian (vii. 29) assert that Alexander set afloat the declaration that he was the son of Zeus to overawe the foreigners over whom he was extending his rule.
[372] Ewald and others think that Heroöpolis was identical with the Raamses of the Bible. Raamses, or Rameses, is a Coptic word meaning “the son of the sun.”