Herodotus: When the Nile overflows the land, only the towns are seen high and dry above the water, very like the islands in the Aegean sea. These alone stand out, the rest of Egypt being a sheet of water. So when this happens, folk are not ferried, as usual, in the course of the stream, but clean over the plain. Indeed, the boat going up from Naucratis to Memphis passes close by the pyramids themselves, though the course does not go by here, but by the Delta's point and the town Cercasorus; but your voyage from the sea and Canobus to Naucratis will take you over the plain near the town of Anthylla and that which is called Arkhandrus' town
See:
- Herodotus, The Histories, A. D. Godley, Ed., II.97 [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0126:book=2:chapter=97&highlight=naucratis]
