Originally (the country) contained not less than 60 million acres-though afterwards the neighbouring peoples made incursions against it - and 600,000 men were settled upon it in farms of a hundred acres each. The river like the Nile rises in harvest- time and irrigates a large portion of the land.
Near the district belonging to the people of Ptolemais it issues into another river and this flows out into the sea. Other mountain torrents, as they are called, flow down into the plain and encompass the parts about Gaza and the district of Ashdod.