"Indian ships small are. Indians not great sailors are, except me. Little ships are good only for fishing or for sailing to Arab ports. You are having big ships; you can from Egypt to India sail without stop."
Agatharchides the tutor was unrolling a map of the world on the floor. The king nodded to Hippalos, who began:
"Now, I think we ought, instead, to mount an expedition to the sources of the Nile—"
Colonel Ananias broke in: "Yes, yes, we know, my dear Hippalos. So, what will you find, but desert land swarming with wild beasts and wilder men? There is no wealth in that country save ivory and slaves, and those we can let the king of Ethiopia gather for us. I say we ought to open up a direct route to India, and so does my royal mistress. For gems, the folk of the Inner Sea will pay well, and the kingdom can turn a pretty profit on the Indian gems that pass through it."
"Your divine mistress," growled the king, "is mad about jewelry; it must be the Judaean influence. She hopes to find an unlimited source of gewgaws and somehow get the monopoly of them away from me. She should have been a Tyrian gem dealer. But I am not letting go of my exclusive rights to these goods for anybody. Go on, O Hippalos."
"Well—ah—there are several reasons for undertaking this expedition. As you have told us, sire, we must look to the south and southeast for expansion. In all other directions we are blocked by the might of Rome or of Parthia. Once we open up the lands to the south by exploration, trade, and road-building, the kingdom of Ethiopia will fall into our hands like a ripe fruit—"
"If you had ever fought Ethiopians, you would not so glibly compare them to ripe fruit," said Ananias.
High Priest Noptes seized the occasion to speak: "O King, the ancient records of the Egyptian priesthoods tell us that the Nile flows from the outer Ocean that encircles the world. Some modern geographers, thinking themselves wiser than their forebears—" (he looked hard at Agatharchides) "—deny this plain fact. If you will send Master Hippalos up the Nile, you will not only prove the wisdom of the Egyptian priests; you will also discover an alternative route to India. If a ship can sail from the Strait of Dernê to India, then it can also sail thither from the outlet, where the Ocean flows into the Nile."
"Rubbish!" exclaimed Agatharchides. "If the Nile flowed from the Ocean—as we Hellenes believed in the days of Homer—then the Nile, the Ocean, and the Inner Sea would all be interconnected. Now, Archimedes of Syracuse has demonstrated that, since water always flows downhill, the levels of any number of interconnected bodies of water, at rest, are identical. Therefore, the Nile could not flow from the Ocean to the Inner Sea, because it would exhibit the same level at both terminals and would hence remain stagnant."
"Water flows downhill only?" said Physkon. "How about when it is forced upwards through a pipe, as in the aqueduct system at Pergamon?"
"I should have said, water that has an upper surface open to the atmosphere, sire," said Agatharchides, flushing.
Ammonios, the Assistant Librarian, put up a timid hand. When the king gave him the nod, he said: "O King: there is a story that the Nile rises from a fountain somewhere in Ethiopia and flows thence in two directions: north to us and south to the Ocean." Bending over the map, whose corners were held down by slaves to keep it from rolling up again, he illustrated his points with his forefinger. "If true, that would reconcile the ideas of the Reverend Noptes and Master Agatharchides."
Physkon: "Well, Agatharchides, which course do you advise?"
"Oh, sire, I favor the Nile expedition—if only to discredit the pretensions of our friend Noptes to the wisdom of his ancient priesthoods. It is time the enigma of the source of the Nile were settled. Such a journey would also prove my theory, that the annual rise of the Nile is occasioned by seasonal rains on mountains in the far interior of Africa. I am not much concerned whether the wretched river flows from the Ocean, or to the Ocean, or has nought to do with the Ocean. I only desire to ascertain the true circumstance."
"It's all very well for you," said the king, "to talk of sending expeditions hither and yon to settle your intellectual puzzles. But by Kyrenê's twelve postures, expeditions cost money, which I must furnish, forsooth! What tangible profit can you offer, to pay the cost of this project?"
The Nile party exchanged looks until Hippalos said: "As a matter of fact, O King, we have found some possible gains. Show him the scroll, Kydas."
Ammonios produced a. battered roll of papyrus, which he handed to Kydas. The latter partly unrolled it and held it up, grunting: "You tell him, lad. I can't remember all these ancients' names."
"We have here," said Ammonios, "a part of the Aithiopika of Myron of Miletos, a work that we thought to have perished—"
"Who was he?" asked the king.
"An Ionian philosopher who served as tutor at the court of Xerxes, about three and a half centuries ago. King Xerxes sent Myron and a Bactrian cavalry officer named Bessas on a mission up the Nile. Unfortunately, the ends of the scroll are missing, so we do not know what the mission was, or even whether they reached their goal. I came upon this a few days past, when Hippalos and I were looking through the battered old books to decide which were worth recopying."
"What does he know about such things?" said Physkon.
Hippalos: "Oh, I was the buyer for the Library of Pergamon before the Romans took it over."
"So?" said the king.
Ammonios pointed to the map. "Myron tells how, in passing through Ethiopia, he discovered that the Nile flows from some great lakes, or inland seas, flanked by snow-covered mountains. And he learnt of a castle beside one of these lakes, built by the exiled Ethiopian king, Takarta. In this castle, the story goes, was a vast treasure in gold and jewels."
"Did they find this treasure?"
"We don't know. The manuscript breaks off where the party leaves Tenupsis, the capital of the southern Nubae, and begins its struggle through the great swamps of that region."
"Perhaps," said Agatharchides, "the Nile flows hither out of these lakes, and another river flows out of them in the opposite direction until it encounters the Ocean. That would explain the belief of Noptes' old priests. I would give a lot to find out."
"Do you think the treasure might still be there?" said the king.
"It's a possibility, sire," said Hippalos.
"Then why did you not tell me of this manuscript before?"
"Why—ah—I wasn't sure what we had found at first, and
I didn't want to raise Your Divine Majesty's hopes and then dash them."
"Ha!" said Physkon, wagging a fat forefinger. "I know better, my good Hippalos. You hoped I should authorize this expedition without your having said aught about the treasure, which you then hoped to find and keep to yourself, unbeknownst to me. Naughty, naughty!"
"Oh, no, sire! By Zeus on Olympos, no such disloyal thought—"
"Spare me your excuses, young man. I long ago learnt that men are a wicked, sinful lot, and that he who entreats them on any other assumption is only storing up trouble for himself." He turned to Kydas and Ammonios. "Well, what do my learned librarians advise?"
"We favor the Nile route," said Kydas. "If the expedition succeed, even to a small degree, it will prove the practical value of your Library and persuade you to devote more of the kingdom's resources to maintaining and enlarging it."
"Including, of course, higher salaries for you two," snorted Physkon, who then asked the remaining guests what they thought. The admiral favored the direct Indian voyage, because he thought it would be useful to establish a permanent Egyptian naval presence on the Indian coast. The man from the Treasury agreed, on the ground that it would be cheaper to refit a transport of the Red Sea fleet for the voyage than to outfit a land expedition through Ethiopia, with all its pack animals, soldiers, and equipment. The First Secretary also preferred the Indian voyage, because the Nile journey would involve diplomatic complications with Ethiopia.