The Town of Thennesus

We were living in a monastery in Syria after our first infancy in the faith. When we had grown somewhat, we began to long for some greater grace of perfection, and we decided at once to seek out Egypt, and to go even to the remotest desert of the Thebaid, to visit a great many of the saints whose glory and fame had spread everywhere. We wished, if not to imitate them, at any rate to know them. And so, after a very long voyage, we came to a town of Egypt named Thennesus. Its people are so hemmed in, either by the sea or by salt lakes, that they give themselves to trade alone and get their wealth and substance by commerce at sea, since the land fails them. Indeed, when they want to build houses there is not enough soil for it, unless it is brought by boat from a distance. [a]