Serbonian Bog

P. L. 2. 592. A mora with a lake in its centre, lying between the eastern angle of the delta of the Nile, Suez, and the Mediterranean. tiquity. Mount Casius, the Isthmus of It is now smaller than in an- Diodorus gives the most important description of it: “Those parts [of Egypt] towards the east are partly secured by by the deserts and by the marshes called the Barathra. For there is a lake between CoeloSyria and Egypt, very narrow, but exceeding deep, even to a wonder, two hundred furlongs in length, called Serbon: if any the river, and partly surrounded through ignorance approach it, they are lost irrecoverably; for the channel being very narrow, like a swaddling-band, and compa ed round with vast heaps of sand, great quantities of it are cast into the lake by the continued southern winds, which so cover the surface of the water, and make it to the view like dry and therefore it cannot po ibly be distinguished; many, unacquainted with the nature of the place, by mi ing their way, have been there swallowed up, together with whole armies. For the sand, being trod upon, sinks down, and gives way by degrees, and like a malicious cheat, deludes and decoys them that come upon it till, too late, when they see the mischief they are likely to fall into, they begin to support and help one another, but without any po ibility either of returning back, or land, that escaping certain ruin; for sinking into the gulf, they are neither able to swim (the mud preventing all motion of the body) nor in a capacity to wade out, having nothing firm to support them for that purpose; for sand and water being mixed together, the nature of both is thereby so changed that there is neither fording nor pa ing over it by boats. Being brought therefore to this pa , without the least po ibility of help to be afforded them, they go together with the sand to the bottom of the gulf, at the very brink of the bog; and so the place, agreeable to its nature, Compare P. L. 2. 939-42. is called Barathrum.” (1. 86.) Seric an a. P. L. 3. 438. (See also Cathay, Imaus.) The usual form of this word is Serica; the form Seric an a is used by Ariosto and Boiardo. The latter writes of Grada o, king of Seric an a: “There was reigning in the parts of the east, near India, a great king in royal dignity, in state and in riches so abounding, and so powerful of body that all the world was not sufficient for him.” (Orlando In nam or a to I. 1. 4:.) The basis Purchas writes: “They have this name of Sera the chiefe Citie, by Ptolemy placed in 177.15 and 38.36. This Region he limiteth on the West with Scythia extra Imaum: on the East with Terra incognita and likewise on the North (here some place the Promontorie Tabin, of later accounts of Serica is Ptolemy. there the Easterne Ocean); on the South with part of India Our silkes have the name of this Region, where extra ch266.xhtml g 276