The city was not, in fact, situated directly upon this branch, but upon a narrow tongue of land, at a little distance from it, near the sea.

It was not easy to enter the channel directly, on account of the bars and sand-banks at its mouth, produced by the eternal conflict between the waters of the river and the surges of the sea.

The water was deep, however, as Alexander's engineers had discovered, at the place where the city was built, and, by establishing the port there, and then cutting a canal across to the Nile, they were enabled to bring the river and the sea at once into easy communication.
The produce of the valley was thus brought down the river and through the canal to the city.

Here immense warehouses and granaries were erected for its reception, that it might be safely preserved until the ships that came into the port were ready to take it away.

These ships came from Syria, from all the coasts of Asia Minor, from Greece, and from Rome.