[158] Herod. ii. 178. [159] Herod. ii. 60. [160] The Acantha is a species of Mimosa, or Acacia, still common in Egypt, and the origin of our “gum Arabic,” perhaps the same as the Shittim wood of Exodus. The present boats are built of it. The Egyptians exported “fine linen” for sail-cloths to Phœnicia (Ezek. xxvii. 7). Hempen (Herod. vii. 25) and palm ropes (not papyrus) were used for the tackle. The process of making them may be seen on the tombs at Beni-Hassan and Thebes, and specimens of them have been often found. The modern boatmen place a stone aft to keep the boat’s head to the stream. Col. Chesney (ii., p. 640) found the Arabs using a bundle of hurdles and a stone for the _kufahs_ on the Euphrates, exactly as described by Herodotus. _Baris_ occurs in Æschylus, technically, as an Egyptian boat (Suppl. 815 and 858); see also Plutarch, Isis, c. 18; Iamblichus De Myst. 5, 6. All their larger, and even their market boats, had cabins. Wilkinson adds that there is as much difference now as of old in the size of the boats; and that there are some (which can only navigate the Nile during the inundation) which are rated as high as twenty-four thousand bushels of corn. The war vessels of the eighteenth and nineteenth Dynasties had a single row of twenty to fifty oars, like the Greek _penteconters_. [161] Herodotus, book ii. c. 96. [162] A talent is about sixty-five pounds weight. [163] See also Rawlinson’s “Herodotus,” vol. ii. p. 132. [164] Rawlinson’s “Herodotus,” vol. ii. p. 156. [165] Tacit. Annal. ii. 6, and De Morib. German, c. xliv. [166] See also Rawlinson’s “Herodotus,” vol. ii. p. 137. [167] Egypt produced no forest timber nor any lofty trees, except the date-palm and sycamore, of which the mummy cases are made. [168] See an elaborate drawing of a ship in Rawlinson’s “Herodotus,” vol. ii. p. 157. [169] Plin. xxxvi. 12. [170] Plin. xxxvi. 86. [171] Cæsar, Bell. Civil. iii. 93. [172] Herod. iv. 42. The canal was really commenced by Rameses II., and, probably, only re-opened by Necho and Darius. [173] Lucian, Navig. 5. [174] Athen. v. 37. [175] See a further examination of her by Leroy, Mémoires de l’Acad. d’Inscriptions, t. xxxvii. [176] A long account is given of her by Athenæus (v. 40-44), who makes use of three distinct words for the trenails, the ribs, and the upright supports of the side planks. [177] This is surely an exaggeration, as the passage through the islands to Asia Minor must have been familiar to them. Even the Spartans were used to the voyage (Herod. i. 70, 152; iii. 47, 57). The reason was rather, as Mr. Grote suggests, “fear of an enemy’s country, where they could not calculate the risk beforehand” (vol. v. p. 198). [178] Plutarch in Thes. c. 19, where “trireme” is used in the sense of any vessel.