Upon the front of the Alexandrian Pharos there was written the appropriate inscription: “King Ptolemy to the God the Saviour, for the benefit of sailors.” [Sidenote: Canal over the Isthmus.] More than one of the followers of Ptolemy I. pursued the same course, and encouraged their subjects in the promotion of commerce. Thus Philadelphus, his son, made a fresh attempt to cut a canal a hundred cubits in breadth, between Arsinoe (on the Red Sea, not far from Suez) to the Pelusiac or eastern branch of the Nile. But though he failed to carry out his plan, as Necho had done two centuries before,[172] he built on the south-western shores of the Red Sea the port of Berenice, so that goods from Alexandria could be carried on camels’ backs for shipment, either from Myos Hormus, or from this new port; while stations were erected on the road, so as to facilitate the commercial intercourse between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, Thus Egypt, mainly through his instrumentality, enjoyed a line of commerce to India uninterruptedly until the period of Augustus Cæsar, when Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire. Although, as we have seen, the Egyptians were not naturally fond of maritime occupations, it is certain that, during the sway of the Ptolemies, an Egyptian fleet was maintained in the Mediterranean of sufficient size to command that sea, and to afford effectual protection to their merchants and ship-owners. Appian, in his preface, enumerating the naval and military forces of Ptolemy, the son of Lagos, says that he had five hundred galleys, two thousand smaller vessels, and eight hundred _thalamegi_, or pleasure boats; and Lucian[173] states that he saw in Egypt a vessel of the country, one hundred and twenty cubits long, thirty broad, and twenty-nine deep. Again, another Ptolemy (Philopator) appears to have been no common enthusiast in ship-building, for he constructed vessels of a size far in excess of any before his day, either in his own or in any other country—ships, indeed, as much larger than any then known, as the Great Eastern is larger than any vessel built in modern times. [Sidenote: Ptolemy’s great ship.]