[375] There is here, as in respect of other countries, a great profusion and variety of tradition, having for its object to prove that Egypt was taken by force of arms, and could therefore be treated as a conquered country; rather than that it capitulated, and was the subject of treaty and stipulations. There was always a strong pressure to prove the former, as it gave the invaders a better standing in courts of law as against the natives, in such claims as that pressed by Zobeir.
[376] The ancient canal appears to have followed very closely the line of the Fresh-water Canal of the present day. We are not favoured with many particulars; but there is no doubt that during Omar’s reign vessels did make the voyage from Cairo to the coast of Arabia, establishing thus a regular traffic between the two countries; and therefore the work must have been very quickly finished by the forced labour of the teeming population.
The reader who is curious about the previous attempts to unite the Nile with the Red Sea will find the subject discussed by Weil (vol. i. pp. 120–122). The attempt was made so far back as the time of Pharaoh Nechos, and subsequently by Darius, who is said to have made communication practicable from Bubastis, on the eastern or Tanitic estuary of the Nile, to the head of the Red Sea. A second canal was opened, under the Ptolemies at Phacusa (Tel Fakhûs), nearer to the Mediterranean. This (taking apparently the line of the Salahiya canal) must have presented greater difficulties in maintaining communication through the system of lagoons leading to the Red Sea, and so it was too shallow to be of much use, excepting in high flood. One of these lines (the former most probably) was eventually deepened by Trajan, and remained navigable to the end at least of the third century of our era. It was this canal, no doubt, which was now cleared out and deepened by Amru. Reference is made by Weil to the following authorities: Bähr’s Herodotus, vol. ii. p. 158; Revue des Deux Mondes, vol. xxvii. p. 215.
[377] This tale (which is not given by our earliest authorities) is, no doubt, based upon a custom of the Egyptians, who, as we learn from Lane, cast, year by year, the effigy of a maiden, decked in bridal attire, into the river, calling it ‘the Bride of the Nile.’ But whether the tale be real or fictitious, the sentiment conveyed in it is indicative of that virtue in the Moslem faith which carries the special providence of God into the life of every day.
[378] Amru is said to have been so pleased with Barca as to declare that if he had not possessed a property and home in the Hejâz, he would have settled there.
[379] The circumstances of the siege (a strange contrast to the bombardment, which recently crowded the horrors of months into so many hours) are narrated with the utmost brevity; and indeed tradition very much confuses the second siege with the first. Eutychius speaks of the investment of the city by the Arabs lasting fourteen months. He also tells us that George the Patriarch fled to Constantinople, and that for ninety-seven years there was no Melchite patriarch for Egypt. A Maronite patriarch seems to have succeeded.
I should mention that by later and less reliable authorities a long correspondence is given as having passed between Amru and Omar, in which the latter upbraids his lieutenant for not remitting ‘as large a revenue as that which Egypt yielded to the Pharaohs.’ Amru resented the imputation; whereupon Omar sent his legate, Mohammed ibn Maslama, to set on foot an investigation into the revenues of the country; and also superseded Amru in the government of Upper Egypt by Abdallah Ibn Abu Sarh. The correspondence (though accepted by Weil) appears to me altogether apocryphal. It was contrary to Omar’s character to write in the harsh and unreasonable tone of these letters, or to press his governors for funds at the expense of the provinces which they administered. Nor did he stand in any urgent need of the additional revenue, as these letters would imply; for the treasures of the world were flowing at this time in a full tide into Medîna. As to Ibn Abu Sarh, he did not supersede Amru till the reign of his foster-brother Othmân.
[380] The earlier operations of Otba have been narrated above, p. 91.
[381] The ancient capital of Khuzistan, where extensive ruins and colonnades still mark the extent and magnificence of this once regal city. Weil doubts whether the expedition reached so far as Persepolis. But I can only follow our authorities, who certainly represent Alâ as advancing to its vicinity.—Weil, vol. ii. p. 87.
[382] Omar, as we shall see farther on, had an unconquerable dread of committing his troops to the sea.