Strabo[1] says grew here, but without success. We may imagine, however, that there was some such like thing; because opposite to one of the divisions into which this large island is broken, there is a village called Zeitoon, or the Olive Tree.
On the 15th of December, the weather being nearly calm, we left the north end of the island, or Heracleotic nome; our course was due south, the line of the river; and three miles farther we passed Woodan, and a collection of villages, all going by that name, upon the east: to the west, or right, were small islands, part of the ancient nome of which I have already spoken.
The ground is all cultivated about this village, to the foot of the mountains, which is not above four miles; but it is full eight on the west, all overflowed and sown. The Nile is here but shallow, and narrow, not exceeding a quarter of a mile broad, and three feet deep; owing, I suppose, to the resistance made by the island in the middle of the current, and by a bend it makes, thus intercepting the sand brought down by the stream.
The mountains here come down till within two miles of Suf el Woodan, for so the village is called. We were told there were some ruins to the westward of this, but only rubbish, neither arch nor column standing. I suppose it is the Aphroditopolis, or the city of Venus, which we are to lookfor
- ↑ Strabo, lib. xvii. p. 936.
