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There is no ‘great river’ running into the Ἐρυθρὴ θάλασσα (here = ‘Red Sea’; but cf. i. 1 n.). The conduit of skins, however, seems to be a distorted version of a real fact. Chesney (Euphrates Exped. ii. 657) says it ‘represents the primitive Kanát’, i. e. subterranean water-course, common in Western Asia; Elphinstone (i. 398) says he has heard of them thirty-six miles long. For these (between Media and Parthia) cf. Polyb. x. 28 and (in the desert of Kerman) M. Polo i. c. 20 (i. 124).

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