"She was the sister of Moses; and she first appears, doubtless as a young girl, watching the Nile-cradle of her infant brother. The land next south of Lake Timsah, made green by the water, is called Gebel Maryam, probably after the sister of Moses. She was a prophetess; but she found fault with the marriage of her brother, for which she was afflicted with Egyptian leprosy. As you find it in the Bible (Numbers xii.), Moses asked the Lord: 'Let her be shut out of the camp seven days, and after that let her be received in again. And Miriam was shut out from the camp seven days.' An Arab legend points out this spot as the place where she spent that time, and from which it gets the name of Maryam."
"That's nice, Captain Ringgold!" exclaimed Mrs. Blossom. "I wish you would tell us more Bible stories."
"Some people believe that the Mediterranean and the Red Seas were connected in some remote age of the world, or at least that the latter extended to the north as far as Lake Timsah," continued the commander, without noticing the suggestion of the amiable lady. "In proof of this supposition, certain shells found in the Mediterranean, but not in the Red Sea, have been thrown up in digging for the canal through Lake Timsah.
"We are approaching what is called the Serapeum," said the captain.
"What! more of them here? I thought we had used up all the Serapeums," said the magnate with a laugh.
"The present one is of a different sort," answered the commander. "But the ruins found in this vicinity were supposed to belong to a Serapeum such as several we have seen on the Nile; but Lepsius says they could not have been a part of a temple to Serapis, but were monuments built on the ancient canal by Darius.
"It is high ground here, comparatively speaking; and you observe that the cutting of the water-way is through a rocky formation, with rather high banks on each side. There is quite a little village above; and, as it is getting dark, we shall pass the night here in the siding-basin."
"Who is that man on the forecastle of the Maud?" asked Captain Scott as the little steamer came into the basin.
"I don't know," replied Captain Ringgold. "I had not noticed him before. He looks like an Arab, though he is taller than most of them."