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NOTES TO LECTURE II 75 (See The First Letter Book of the East India Company 1600-1619, edited by Birdwood and Foster (1893) pp. xxxi. H. G. Rawliason Intercourse between India and the Western World, (1926), Cambridge, p. 11. Mr. J. Kennedy in the Journal of the Royal Asiastic Society (April, 1898). Sec also G. Buhler's Indian Studies, No. III, pp. 81-82, etc.) See also Sir W. W. Hunter's A History of British India, (Longmans Green & Co., 1919), pp. 23-25. Rev. Fr. H. Heras in his latest article on the "Kingdom of Megan " to B. C. Law Volume agrees with this view entirely. Memoirs of J.A.S.B., VII, p. 208. 3. The Early Attempts to cut the Isthmus of Sues : The difficulties of the long and perilous desert journeys between the Nile and the Red Sea were long and continuously felt. The necessity to connect these two warterways by means of a canal became more and more clear as trade expanded. It is said that a Sesostris of the twentieth century B. c. made almost the first attempt in this direction. Pharaoh Necho and Darius the Great gave their serious thought to this problem. It was given to the genius of Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-246 B. C.) to build a large port at Arsince, the modern Suez. But this had to be abandoned sooner or later owing to the perilous nature of the navigation of the Heroopolite Gulf. Centuries later the immense advantage of the Suez struck De Lesseps who carried it through successfully. It is shown that merchants preferred to take their goods to the Levantine ports through Aelana, the ancient Ezion Geber (modern Akaba) and Petra. (H. G. Rawlinson, Intercourse between India and the Western World (1926), Cambridge, pp 89-90, 4. Ed. by E. B. Cowell (Cambridge, 1897, III, p. 83. The land of Baberu was Babylon. First a crow and then a