It was called Bolbitine by the Greeks, but according to Herodotus the Bolbitine mouth was artificial, and it was evidently of little importance compared with the Canopic, Sebennytic and Pelusiac mouths.
It receives the Waters of the canalized channels which were once the Tanitic, Mendesian and Pelusiac branches.
That part of the lake east of where the canal was excavated is now marshy plain and the Tanitic and Pelusiac mouths of the Nile are dry.
Farther east are other canals, of which the most remarkable occupy in part the beds of the Tanitic and Pelusiac branches.
It lay in the marshes at the mouth of the most easterly (Pelusiac) branch of the Nile, which has long since been silted up, and was the key of the land towards Syria and a strong fortress, which, from the Persian invasion at least, played a great part in all wars between Egypt and the East.