[…] in years when need was pressing, […] the government would order the construction of extra ships at specified points on the shores of the Black Sea and Mediterranean, and the impressment of craftsmen to do the work.

I surmise that pond originally meant a deep water. So pontus (the old Roman for bridge) may be a shortcut expression for a woodway over a pond.

We looked out from a heady outcrop of rock.

[Hermann Volrath] Hilprecht (Recent Researches in Bible Lands, p. 9 [wherein is Egyptological]): “What then are our principal gains from Ægyptological research? In the foremost rank, we have the splendid vindication of the accuracy of the writer of the account of Israel’s sojourn in Lower Egypt. What is said in Genesis and Exodus of the character of the country, its government and its court, and the customs of the people, are shown to be pictures faithfully drawn from the life” (cf. Herzog, i. 709).