The first of these cities on the road from Syria was El Arish, situated near the Wadi el Arish, the river or “stream of Egypt” of the Bible (Isa. xxvii. 12). El Arish was accounted a very ancient city by the Arabs. Its land was cultivated soon after the Deluge and was called the Gate to Paradise. Abraham passed here. Makrizi († 1441) relates a tradition regarding the building of reed huts there, which recalls an incident preserved by Diodorus Siculus (_c._ B.C. 20), the origin of which may be sought in the wish to explain the later name of the city which was Rhinocorura or Rhinocolura. According to Diodorus, King Actisanes of Egypt, possibly Hor-em-heb (XVIII 14), having conquered Egypt, collected all who were suspected of thieving, and after their judicial conviction, caused their noses to be cut off, and sent them to colonise a city built for them at the extremity of the desert. Here, being destitute of means of subsistence, they resorted to the device of splitting reeds, which they wove into nets and stretched out along the sea shore to catch quails. The incident of the noses (quasi ῥῖνος κόλουροι = curti, al. ρ. κείρασθαι), determined the name of the place.[134] Its Egyptian name was probably Zaru (Fig. 18). The city gained in importance during Roman times. Strabo called it a city of Phœnicia, close to Egypt, and an emporium of Indian and Arabic merchandise, which was discharged at Leukokome and conveyed via Petra to Rhinocorura, where it was dispersed.[135] The city is now partly enclosed by walls of considerable thickness, and lies half a mile from the coast on the edge of the desert. According to the travellers, Irby and Mangles, it contains some notable Roman remains. From this period probably date the marble columns, later appropriated to the churches which were eventually transported to Cairo. West of Rhinocorura lay Ostracine, the site of which is nowadays surrounded by marshland which is flooded at certain times of the year. The city was formerly fed by a canal that brought water from the Tanitic branch of the Nile. The strategic importance of Ostracine attracted the attention of the emperor Vespasian. For the road coming from Syria divided at Ostracine. One branch led north of the Serbonian bog, _via_ Casium, Gerra and Pelusium to Alexandria; another passing south of the bog, was the old military road to Memphis with stations at Katia and Kantara. A third road led from Ostracine to Arsinoë (near the present Suez), which Pliny described as “mountainous and destitute of water” (asperum montibus et inops aquarum).[136]