In his description of the coast of the Red Sea he commences with Arsinoe,
and goes down the western side as far as Ptolemais Theron; a place so
called, because elephants were there hunted and taken, and are still,
according to Bruce. Agatharcides adds, that the usual navigation was to
this place for elephants. He notices Myos Hormos, but not Berenice; he has
even mentioned the islands at the straits of Babelmandeb, and the prodigies
which in his time, and much later, were supposed to lie beyond them. There
is, however, one part of his work, in which he seems to indicate the
curvature of the African coast to the east beyond the straits; but it is
doubtful whether in this place he is speaking of the coast within or
without the straits.
In his description of the coast between Myos Hormos and Ptolemais, he
points out a bay, which, both from the identity of the name, and the
circumstances respecting it which he narrates, undoubtedly is the Foul Bay
of the moderns. Strabo, who, as we have already stated, borrows freely and
frequently from Agatharcides, describes this bay as full of shoals and
breakers, and exposed to violent winds; and he adds, that Berenice lies at
the bottom of it. The accuracy of our author, even when he is opposed by
the testimony of Bruce, is fully proved in what he relates of the coast
below Foul Bay: after mentioning two mountains, which he calls the Bulls,
he particularly adverts to the dangerous shoals which often proved fatal to
the elephant ships on their passage to and from Ptolemais.
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