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102 wandering Bedouin. Moreover, it has larger oases, and therefore larger cities. What, however, most distinguishes Arabia both from the Heartland and the Sahara is the fact that it is traversed by three great water-ways in connection with the ocean—the Nile, the Red Sea, and the Euphrates and Persian Gulf. None of these three ways, however, affords naturally a complete passage across the arid belt. The Nile was navigable from the Mediterranean only to the first cataract, midway across the desert, though locks have now been constructed at Assouan which give access as far as the second cataract; and the navigation of the Euphrates ascends only to a point a hundred miles from the Mediterranean. To-day it is true that the Suez Canal unites the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, but it was not only the isthmus which formerly impeded through traffic by this route; persistent north winds of the trade wind current blow down the northern end of the Red Sea, which is beset with rocks, and sailing ships do not willingly attempt the northward voyage to the Canal, which would therefore have been relatively useless but for steam navigation. The former Red Sea route to the Mediterranean was from Kosseir on the west coast over the desert to the Nile at