ETERNE. ETHE. To say that immensity does not signify boundless space, and that eternity does not signify duration or time without beginning and end, is (I think) affirming that words have no meaning. Papers between Leibnitz and Clarke. Dr. Carke's fifth Reply. Though poets immortality may give, And Troy does still in Homer's numbers live; Otway. Windsor Castle. Nor would th' enamour'd Muse neglect to pay The boasted theme of Pope's immortal strain. Smollett. Reproof. A Salire. ETESIAN, Gr. érhetos, yearly, annual, from eros, the year, Venti anniversarii; “Fr. etesies; the Easterly winds which commonly blow in the Dog-daies." Cotgrave. Another opinion there is, more embraced than the rest, That whiles the forerunning winds blow and the Etesian blasts together, holding on continually for the space of forty-five dayes, they force backe his [the Nile] streame, and by reason that his swift course is thus restrained, he swelleth, and his waves overflow. Holland. Ammianus, fol. 211. So may th' auspicious Queen of Love And he who rules the raging wind, Julianus. Dryden. Horace. Ode 3. book i. ETHE, i. e. easy, q. v. and also Eath. R. Brunne, p. 194. Piers Plouhman. Crede, sig. E 4. But if thou couthest sette in rewle Gower. Conf. Am. Prologue, fol. 11. It is richt facill and eith gate, I the tell, Douglas. Eneados, book vi. fol. 167. Thus eded this honorable man, a good knight and a gentle, of gret aucthorite with his prince, of liuing some what dessolute,plaine and open to his enemy, and secret to his friend; eth to begile, as he that of good hart and corage forestudied no perilles. Sir Thomas More. Workes, fol. 55. History of Richard III. ETHERIA ETHER, Lat. æther; Gr. aioǹp; Fr. ethéré, ETHER. ETHE'REAL, -Aristotle derives from aieì Oéciv, quod ETHE'REOUS. semper currat et moveatur, because it is ever in motion. Others, àñò тê aïðεi, urere, quod igneus sit et incensus; because it is fiery and of flame. Others, again, ȧTо Te Oépeiv, hoc est ab calfaciendo; from its heat. Becman is not content with any of these, and resorts to the Hebrew. Olympus, fair'st of hills, that heaven art said to be, I [Malvern] envy not thy state, nor less myself do make; To thrust thy forked top into th' etherial fire. Drayton. Poly-olbion, song 7. Which of us who beholds the bright surfáce The mind employ'd in search of secret things, Blackmore. Creation, book ii. Quick ether's motion: oft the scene is turn'd; Dyer. The Fleece, book i O what a confluence of ethereal fires, From urns unnumbered down the steep of heaven, Streams to a point, and centers in my sight! Young. The Complaint, Night 9. ETHERIA, in Zoology, a genus of Bivalve shells, established by Lamarck, in the Annals of the Museum, belonging to the family Chamide. The genus has been adopted by most French and German Naturalists, although it has not been noticed by Cuvier in his Animal Kingdom, or by Blainville in his Papers on the Molluscous genera. Generic character. Shell irregular, unequivalved, adherent; umbones short, as if sunk in the edge of the valves; hinge without teeth, waved, sinuous, unequal, cartilage internal, sunk in a small triangular space, separating into two parts, the umbones of the valves extending along their whole length; muscular impressions two, oblong, distant, one anterior and one posterior; submarginal impression entire, not bent in at the hinder edge. Lamarck describes four species, and he observes, that the principal cause of their not having before been described is, that they are attached to rocks below the surface of the sea; and he has given the coast of the Island of Madagascar as the habitation of two of his species. But the Travels of Cailliaud and Clapperton have shown that some species of this genus are fresh-water, for they have been found by them in the Nile, at a considerable distance from the sea; and one of the specimens brought home by the latter, at present in the British Museum, is attached to the valve of a fresh-water Muscle. The surface of most of the specimens are eroded like other fluviate shells, and are covered with small vesicular bodies, which are considered to be the eggs of some river Mollusca. Both the species which Lamarck has described as coming from the coast of Madagascar are separated from those which have been found to be fluviatile, by their not having a callosity in the back of their shell, ETHERIA. which the fluviatile species always have; so that it is reasonable to suppose that one division of the genus is ETHIOPIA fluviatile, and the other marine. I. With a callosity in the back of the shell. II. Without any callosity at the back of the shell. from the coast of Madagascar. These shells, on account of their rarity, generally fetch high prices; three specimens have been sold by public sale for £75. E'THICK, n. E'THICK, adj. E'THICAL, E'THICALLY. Gr. Oikos, from 0os, mores; which Lennep conceives to have its origin in ew, sum, versor. For the modern application of the word, see the first Quotation from Cogan. a T. Ca. buzz'd me at the ear, that though Ben had barrel'd up great deal of knowledge, yet it seems he had not read the ethicks, which, among other precepts of morality, forbid self-commendation. Howell. Letter 13. book ii. He [St. Paul] thereby has furnished us with so rich a variety of moral and spiritual precepts, concerning special matters subordinate to the general laws of piety and virtue; that out of them might well be compiled a body of ethicks, or system of precepts de officiis, in Boyle. Works, vol. ii. P. 340. A Discourse touching Occasional Meditations, ch. ii. sec. 3. My subject leads me not to discourse ethically, but Christianly of Government of the Tongue. the faults of the tongue. Ethicks extend to the investigation of those principles by which moral men are governed; they explore the nature and excellence of virtue, the nature of moral obligation, on what it is founded, and what are the proper motives of practice; morality in the more common acceptation, though not exclusively, relates to the practical and obligatory part of ethicks. Ethicks principally regard the theory of morals. Cogan. On the Passions, vol. ii. Introduction, p. 3. I scorn the moral fop, and ethic sage, illumin'd page. Thompson. Written on the Holy Bible. In a treatise on morals, we expect that the author should particularly enlarge upon the rules, or duties, and motives of practice: and by an ethical treatise, we expect a more extensive investigation of whatever relates to the state and nature of man as a moral agent; and a more minute examination of the principles themselves, on which moral precepts are enforced. Cogan. On the Passions, vol. ii. Introduction, p. 3. Name and site. ETHIOPI A. ETHIOPIA, or as it was formerly, and more correctly, spelt, Æthiopia, is a name which was applied by the Ancients, at different periods, to various tracts of country remote from each other in extent and position. It signified the Land of the Æthiops, i. e. the inhabitants of the Southern extremity of the Earth. In proportion as the Geographical knowledge of the Greeks increased, their notions respecting distant nations were enlarged; and the Ethiops, who had been at first placed on the Southern and Eastern shores of the Mediterranean, were removed into Arabia, and the regions South of Egypt; till at length their name was almost restricted to the natives of the Tropical parts of Africa, and became synonimous with the word Negro, as used by ourselves. Homer, who is mentioned by Strabo, as master of all the Geographical knowledge possessed in his Age, (i. 1, vol. i. p. 2,) speaks of the Eastern and Western Ethiopians, supposing the whole of the Southern side of the world to be bounded by the Ocean, and inhabited by that people, whose country he believed to be divided into two parts by the Red Sea, (i. 2, i. p. 55.) This accounts for the mention made by some ancient writers of Asiatic, as well as African Æthiopians; but as the Nile, and not the Red Sea, was sometimes considered as the line of partition between Asia and Africa, a portion of the Ethiopians belonging to the latter might be assigned to the former, even after the Greeks had obtained a more exact account of their country. According to some writers cited by Strabo, (i. 2, vol. i. p. 67,) Ethiopia comprehended all the country bounded on the North by Mount Amanus; the whole therefore of Syria and Palestine, as well as a part, if not all of the Arabian peninsula; and it is of this Asiatic Ethiopia VOL. XXI. that Homer, Hesiod, and their immediate followers principally speak. "It was called," says Stephanus, (De Urbibus,) "Jopia, (an abbreviation, as he supposes, of Æthiopia,) and it reached from Sidon to the Red Sea, extending Eastwards as far as Babylonia and Persia." This is the country celebrated in fabulous history as the Kingdom of Cepheus, whose Capital was Joppé, (Joppa,) a port possessing a good harbour. His daughter Andromeda was delivered by Perseus from the sea monster, to which she had been devoted as a victim, and carried as his bride into Greece. It was then, probably, that the Greeks first visited the Eastern and Southern coasts of the Mediterranean; and, as was natural, they called the nations of those countries Æthiopes, i. e. Fiery, from the dark-red or copper hue of their complexions. Etherii, Erythrai, and Phonices, all words of the same import, were names given at different periods to different Tribes occupying the same tract of land, and perhaps derived from the same origin; and, as that tract was peculiarly devoted to the worship of Neptune, it may be conjectured, that it was the Æthiopia visited by him and the other Gods, for the purpose of enjoying the fumes ascending from the hecatombs continually smoking on their altars, (Hom. Il. i. 423; xxiii. 205.) It is possible, also, that the superior hospitality and civilisation by which this maritime people was distinguished from the Greeks, then rude and savage in their habits, were the causes of the high reputation which they had acquired for piety and integrity. These were likewise the Ethiopians visited by Menelaus; and the book of Joshua shows how much they had advanced in the arts of civilized life even before their country was invaded by the Israelites; three centuries before the time of 4 N Colonies. ETHIOPIA which Homer speaks. Memnon, likewise, a King of the Ethiopians, who reigned at Susa, is said to have died near the river Badas, in the Syrian territory called Paltos, and is thus brought into the very country supposed to be intended by Homer. Its coast also is opposite to Cyprus, where an Ethiopian colony had been established, according to Herodotus, (vii. 90;) for colonies, it may be remarked, are formed only by maritime States, and though the Historian seems to distinguish the Ethiopians from the Phoenicians, the latter, as well as the Sidonians, had been known to the Greeks as different from their Southern neighbours as early as the time of the Trojan war. According to Hesychius, the Island of Lesbos was anciently called Ethiopia, and its people Æthiopes; having been colonized, perLeuco-Syri. haps, from the Syrian coast. The Leuco-Syri, or White Syrians, seem to have received that name as a distinctive term by which any confusion between them and their darker neighbours to the South might be avoided. It is also by no means improbable, that the latter were gradually driven further South by hardier and fairer hordes from the North and East; for in that direction the tide of emigration seems always to have set. Herodotus, who lived more than 400 years after Homer, speaks of the Eastern Ethiopians on the Western confines of Persia, or in Southern India; but he expressly says, that they spoke a different language, and had not the curly hair of their namesakes in the West, (vii. 70,) a plain indication that the word Ethiop was a generic term applied at first to all Tribes who had a dark and copper colour complexion, and by degrees appropriated to Negroes, or those who nearly resemble them, thus restricting the name to the nations of tropical Africa; for it can hardly be supposed, that the Ancients had any knowledge of the Negroes indigenous in the Asiatic Islands. Ethiops various. Ethiopia Proper. But, even when so limited, the name of Ethiop was the property of many very distinct nations, and was applied to all whose complexions were nearly black. The Greeks and Romans appear to have had some knowledge of the African coast as far as Prasum (Cape Delgado in 10° 15′ S., 41° 45′ E.) on the East, and Cerne (near Sierra Leone) on the West; and as the inhabitants of the Southern regions on each side of the continent were black, they were all supposed to belong to the same race, and all received the same name. That appellation, however, properly belonged to the natives of the country near the Nile and South of Egypt. This was the Ethiopia of the Ancients, the Southern and unknown boundaries of which was supposed to be the Ocean. The mere names of the Tribes occupying this country are sufficient to show the barbarism in which they were immersed, and the ignorance of the Greeks, except as to a few vague rumours respecting their habits. Thus, beginning from the South, between the promontory called the Southern Horn, Noti Cornu. (Noti Cornu, Cabo das Baxas, Cape Shallows in 4° 30′ N.,) we have the Frankincense coast, (Thurifera Regio,) and above it, the land of Myrrh, (Myrrhifera,) a country fertile in fruits, and peopled by fish-eaters and flesheaters, (Ichthyophagi and Creophagi.) To the North phagi, Creo of them was the Spice coast, extending from Cape phagi. Aromata (Cape Ghar-defar or Guardafui) to Diré or Aromata. Dere, (Ap) in Strabo, and Apŋ in Ptolemy,) now Cape Báb-el-mandeb, and further on, as far as the confines of Egypt, the coast of the Red Sea was occuTrogloditæ. pied by the Troglodyte, or Inhabitants of Caverns. 1. hthyo Crossing thence to the Nile, we come to the land of ETHIOPIA the Ethiopians, properly so named, who possessed the narrow valley subsequently called Nubia, and the peninsula named by the Ancients the Island of Meroë, to the South of which was Tenesis, the Capital of the Sembrite, and still further South, on the shores of the Ocean, the Macrobii, or Long-lived Ethiops, whose Macd spirited and judicious reply to the insidious embassy of Cambyses is so agreeably told by Herodotus, (iii. 21.) From adhering to a simple but solid diet, they usually extended their lives to one hundred and twenty years, and sometimes to a longer period: and were also some of the best-made, tallest, and most athletic of mankind. The strongest man among them was chosen for their King; but notwithstanding their extraordinary powers, they were extremely peaceful, and had no desire to encroach upon their neighbouring territories. A large supply of provisions ready dressed was every night placed secretly on an open area before their chief city, and left to be seized by the people when they went forth to their daily labours. This was called “the Table of the Sun," and believed by the populace to have sprung spontaneously from the earth. They also possessed a wonderful Spring, the water of which was so light that nothing would swim in it, and so fragrant that it gave the odour of violets to the bodies of those who used it as a bath; and to its virtues, "if it really be what they say," adds the Historian, (iii. 23,) “the extraordinary length of their lives may perhaps be owing." Their prisoners were bound by golden chains, such a drug was gold in their country; and their corpses were covered, like Egyptian mummies, with a coating of painted plaster, so as to resemble the deceased when living, and then kept enclosed in a cylinder of mineral glass among the family relics. The abundance of obsidian found near Adulis (Salt's Travels in Abys sinia) may, perhaps, appear to verify one part of these accounts; but the additions made by Diodorus seem to prove that the whole rested upon vague reports collected from travellers and seafaring men, who, either through ignorance or design, exaggerated what they had seen; for the land of these " long-lived" Negroes was removed to a greater distance as fast as the Southern regions became better known; so that instead of being part of the continent, as affirmed by the ambassadors of Cambyses, (Herod. iii. 7,) it turns out, according to Diodorus, (Biblioth. Hist. ii. 55,) to be an island 5000 stadia (625 miles) in circumference, and four months' sail from the Ethiopian coast. The Jamba narrative of Jambulus, his voucher, who was a Greek Happy or Phoenician merchant, and a great rambler, has too much of the marvellous to be received without great caution; but the “ Happy Island," in which he passed so long a time, and where he found these sage Macrobii, agrees so well in point of distance and other circumstances with Madagascar, that it is probable he really did reach that Island; and, in order to improve his story, attributed to its people some of the wonderful peculiarities believed by the Greeks to distinguish the natives of the Southern extremity of the earth. Island The whole coast of the Red Sea from Heroöpolis, at Troglo its North-West extremity, to the Avalitic Gulf beyond Diré, (Báb-el-mandeb,) was called Trogloditica, as being occupied by a wild race inhabiting caverns, (pwa :) but, as may be supposed, many different tribes were included under this name of Troglodyte, and none but the Southern were properly Æthiopians. Berenice. Topazos. ETHIOPIA The Promontory of Lepte Extrema, near Berenice, (nearly in 24° N.) called by Pliny (ii. 73) the City of the Troglodyte, was one, and the Eastern extremity of the Avalitic Gulf the other, boundary of their country. They resembled in many respects the Káfirs of the present day, leading, like them, a wandering and pastoral life; taking shelter in caves during the rainy season, whence they received their name; and having, like the inhabitants of Jambulus's Happy Island, all their wives and children in common. They buried their dead in the midst of mirth and laughter, and were continually engaged in feuds with their neighbours. Swords and lances, bows and arrows, were their weapons; the bone and meat pounded into one mass and then roasted in the skin was their food; blood, water, and milk, their drink. Their Princes, however, drank mead, and had wives to themselves. Their country was, according to Pliny, (vi. 29,) called Michoë or Midoë, and under the Ptolemies several emporiums or trading-places were built on different parts of their coast: the first was Berenice, nearly in latitude 24° N., the ruins of which were visited by M. Belzoni, in 1818, (Travels, 329, 330.) It was named after the mother of its founder, Ptolemy Philadelphus. A little to the South of it was an island first called Ophiodes, from the serpents by which it was infested, and afterwards Topazos, from the gems found in it, (Diod. iii. 39.) Under the Ptolemies all access to it, except by the agents of the Government, was strictly prohibited, and the wretched garrison was often in danger of being starved. The five-peaked mountain, called Pentedactylus, (Pliny, N. H. vi. 29,) was to the South of Berenice. The Deep Harbour, (Ba@vs Aμ,) that of the Dioscuri; the Saviour" Port, (perhaps the Port of" the Saviour Gods," i. e. Ptolemy Soter II. and his mother Cleopatra,) that of the Bringers of Good Tidings, and Ptolemaïs, all followed in succession from North to South. The last, (in North latitude 19°,) called Ptolemaïs Ferarum, from the elephants taken in its neighbourhood, is marked by Strabo as a place where the longest day has only thirteen hours. It was built by Eumedes, sent by Ptolemy Philadelphus to preside over the elephant hunt, near the Monolean Lake, 4820 stadia (602 miles) from Berenice, (Pliny, N. H. ii. 73.) Saba, or Sabre, was another Port and large Town further South, near which elephants were caught, (Strabo, xvi. 530.) This was either in, or near, the Bay of Adulis or Adule, ("Adovλis or ’Adovìŋ,) the principal emporium after Berenice. Near to Saba, probably the Sabat of Ptolemy, was a second Berenice, called Panchrysos, (Pliny, N. H. vi. 29,) from the richness of its gold mines, and Sabæan (karà Σaßàs) from the neighbouring harbour. Ptolemais. Saba. Adulis. 66 Adulis was built by runaway slaves from Egypt, (Pliny, N. H. vi. 34,) and was distant from its Port 20 stadia, (two miles and a half.) It could hardly therefore be, as has been supposed, Arkíkó (in 15° 40′ N.) on the South-West side of the Bay of Masuwwah. It was the great mart for ivory, rhinoceros-horns, hippopotamus-hides, tortoise-shell, gold, slaves, and monkeys, and was adorned with a statue of Ptolemy Euergetes, the inscription beneath which has been preserved by Cosmas Indicopleustes (the Indian Navigator) who flourished in the Vth century. It records the victories of that Prince, and shows that his Empire was extended far beyond the bounds of Egypt. The Promontory of Saturn, and the villages of Mandaëth and Arsinoë, intervened between Adulis and the Strait at the Diré. mouth of the Red Sea, formed by the Promontory ETHIOPIA called Diré. The last named place was near Berenice epi Dires, mentioned by Pliny, (ibid.) who says it was built on a long spit of land where the strait is narrowest, not being there more than seven miles and a half across. Cape Diré separated the Red Sea from the Avalitic Cape Diré. Gulf, and was to the South-East of the corresponding point on the Avalian side, (Ptolemæi Geogr.; Strabo, xvi. p. 529.) On the shore of the Sinus Avalites were the Cape, Town, and Port of Mossylon, the extremity Mossylon. of the conquests of Sesostris, (Pliny, N. H. vi. 34,) and thence cinnamon was exported. The Town and Cape named Aromata, from the spices collected there, Aromata. terminated this Gulf on the East. It was followed by the Barbaric Gulf, on the shore of which lay the region called Barbaria, by Ptolemy; this was bounded on the East by the Town and Promontory of Apocopa. In this sea were the Azanian Roads, according to Barbaria or Marcian of Heraclea, (who lived probably in the IIId Azania. century,) and it is called the Azanian Sea by Pliny, (N. H. vi. 34,) the name of the adjoining country being at that time Azania, a term derived perhaps from the Arabic word Ajan, which exactly corresponds with the Greek Bápßapos, (barbarus.) The Southern Horn, (Noti Cornu,) the next great Promontory, was Noti Cornu much lower down, and supposed by the Ancients to be South of the Equator. Beyond it were the Ports of Sarapion and Nicon. Rhapta, near a Cape and River Rhapta. of the same name, and still further South, was the Capital of Barbaria, according to Ptolemy, and the last emporium in Azania, according to Arrian, (Peripl. Maris Erythræi.) From this point little seems to have been known, except that there was a vast gulf, called "the Short Sea," bounded by Cape Prasum, a Prasum. very bold Promontory, the shores of which were inhabited by cannibals, (Marcian. Heracleota.) This Cape is placed by Ptolemy in 15° South latitude, and all beyond it, he says, is terra incognita, (yn ayywσTOS.) The Island of Menuthias was not far from Cape Prasum. Menuthias. The interior of this country was almost as little known to the Greeks as to us, and Abyssinia, which formed a part of Æthiopia Proper, seems to have been the limit of their discoveries in that part of Africa. On the North and North-West were the Nubi, or Nubi. Nubians, a Libyan people, who appear to have been a migratory tribe, originally occupying the Western side of the Garamantic valley, (Jermah to the West of Fezzán,) and afterwards spreading themselves over the tract now called Nubia and a part of Abyssinia. Their principal settlement seems to have been on the NorthWest of Ethiopia Proper; and they were probably of the same race as the Nobate, who were mingled, on the East and North-East, with the Blemmyes, another Blemmyes. wild and vagrant race, scattered over the mountains and deserts between Egypt and the Avalitic Gulf. They were called Blembi, and Balnemmôwi by the Egyptians, (Quatremère, Mém. sur l'Egypte, ii. 128,) and were found in the greatest numbers on the Astaboras, (Atbara,) and near Adulis. According to Agathemerus, (Geogr. Min. ii. p. 41,) they were the Ostrich-eaters, (Struthiophagi;) the Ethiopians were their masters when that country had powerful Sovereigns, but at other periods found them dangerous neighbours. They were, doubtless, some of the fiercest and most barbarous of the African Tribes known to the Greeks and Romans, and for that reason were said to have no heads, but a mouth and eyes in their bosoms, (Pliny, Bojah or Bejah. ETHIOPIA N. H. v. 8.) The first seen at Rome were those who appeared in the Triumph of Aurelian, (A. D. 272.) But they must have been more civilized in the next half century, for they sent ambassadors to the Court of Constantine the Great, (Euseb. Vita Const. iv. 7.) Their fierceness and warlike habits are frequently mentioned by the early Christian writers, and we learn from Procopius, (De Bello Persico, i. p. 60,) that they worshipped Isis, Osiris, and Priapus, (Mendis,) and offered human victims to the Sun; a part of their religious belief, therefore, was borrowed from Egypt and Ethiopia. Heliodorus (Ethiop. x. p. 495) represents them as crowned with garlands of bows and arrows, garnished with serpents' teeth; and so daring as to creep under their enemy's horse, stab him in the belly, and massacre his rider, as soon as he was thrown by his struggling beast, (Ibid. x. 435.) The Bojah, considered by the Arabs as a Berber race, occupied nearly the same country, and, in their character and habits, strongly resembled these barbarians. They are now Bishareen. replaced by the Bishárí, (Burckhardt's Nubia, p. 148,) who were themselves driven from the Northern part of this territory by the Abábideh Arabs, the latter now extending as far as Berenice, and being in possession of the emerald mines, (Belzoni, p. 309,) which formerly belonged to the Bojah, (Macrízí, in Burckh. Nubia, p. 503.) Far from being as hideous as the Blemmyes, "the Bishárín of Atbara," says Burckhardt, (Ibid. p. 371,) they are a handsome and bold race of people." They are constantly armed, much given to quarrelling, thieving, and drunkenness. This, moreover, "is not the worst part of their character;" for "they appear to be treacherous, cruel, avaricious, and revengeful," heedless of any laws, human or divine. They are as bad Musulmáns as the Negroes are good, and as inhospitable as the latter are liberal. Raw meat, and blood warm from the animal, are their greatest dainties, (Ibid. p. 149.) They have a dark brown complexion, with fine eyes and teeth, (p. 370;) but their language, of which Burckhardt and Seetzen formed vocabularies, (Nubia, p. 160; Vater's Proben Volksmundarten, p. 263; Salt's Travels, Append. p. xv.) does not appear to have any affinity with that of the Bojahs or Takas, (Takué of Salt ;) who were probably dislodged by them, just as they were themselves supplanted by the Abábidehs. Æthiopia Proper. * The narrow valley through which the Nile seems to force its way towards Egypt, and the extensive plains lying between that valley and junction of the Nile with the Atbara, form the Northern part of the region which was peculiarly called Ethiopia by the Ancients. The central and most valuable part of Ethiopia Proper was the peninsula, or, (as the Greeks supposed,) the Island of Meroë, "reported," says Strabo, (p. 117, ed. Casaub.; 565, ed. Almelov.,) "to have the form of an oblong shield, and to measure- -(perhaps the account is exaggerated)-3000 stadia (375 miles) in length, and 1000 (125 miles) in breadth. On the Libyan side it is enclosed by large sand-hills; on the Arabian, by continual precipices; on the South, by the confluence of the rivers Astaboras," (Tacazzé or Atbara ;) "Astapus," (Bahr-el-azrek, Blue River, or Abyssinian Nile ;) "and Astasobas," (Bahr-el-abyad, White River, or true Nile ;) "but to the North, the *This tract of country was in later times called Nubia, and under that head the Reader will find a more detailed account of it. Nile flows onwards, with an uninterrupted stream, to ETHIOPIA Egypt, though, as was before observed, in a tortuous course. The country is mountainous and well-wooded; and contains mines of copper, iron, gold, and salt. Some of the inhabitants are migratory, some hunters, and others husbandmen. In their towns, the houses have walls made of interwoven palm-slats, or of bricks. The most common trees are the Palm, (Phenix dactylifera,) the Persea, (Balanites Ægyptiaca ?) the Ebenus, (Diospyrus Ebenus,) and the Ceratia, (Ceratonia siliqua.) The beasts are elephants, lions, and leopards; there are also serpents, which attack (even) the elephants, and many other wild beasts; for (such animals) fly from the hotter and more parched regions, to the moist and marshy places.” 66 Some "The Libyans occupy the Western, and the Ethiopians the opposite bank of the Nile; but the latter, being the stronger, are masters of the islands, and the water's edge. They use wooden bows, four cubits long, and bent by means of fire. They arm their women, most of whom have a copper ring in one of their lips. They wear sheep-skins, but not covered with wool, for their sheep have hair like goats. go naked; others have small sheep-skins, or neatly woven hair-cloths girt (round their loins.) They believe one God to be immortal, and the cause of all things; another, a mortal, nameless being, not distinctly known. For the most part, however, they consider their benefactors as Gods, whether they be private individuals, or persons of Princely dignity: the latter are honoured publicly, as the common saviours and guardians of all; the former privately, by those on whom they confer benefits. Amongst the inhabitants of the burned country, some are reckoned Atheists, and said to abhor the Sun, whom, when they see him rising, they revile, as scorching and making war upon them; and they afterwards fly to the marshes. The inhabitants of Meroë also worship Hercules, Pan, and Isis, together with another foreign God." Diodorus, who evidently drew his materials from the same sources, has added some facts omitted by Strabo. The Gods whom they believe to be eternal and incorruptible are," he says, (iii. 9,) "the Sun, the Moon, and the whole Universe;" those who partake of a mortal nature are men, "who, by their virtue and universal beneficence to mankind, have obtained immortal honours." He names Jupiter as one of the Deities worshipped by the Ethiopians of Meroë, so that this account differs less from that of Herodotus than his learned translator, M. Larcher, (Herod. ii. 217, ed. 1802,) has hastily affirmed. Some of their dead the Ethiopians threw into the river, (Strabo, l. c.; Diodor. ii. 9,) others they preserved in their houses enclosed in glass; others again they buried in coffins (sori) made of earthernware, in the sacred enclosure round their Temples, and when they swore by them, the oath was considered as most sacred. Their Kings were chosen either for their beauty, excellent management of their cattle, courage, or wealth; and for many Ages, the government was entirely under the controul of the Priests, who caused it to be intimated to the King when they thought it was time that he should despatch himself, and make way for his successor. This hierarchical dominion was, however, subverted by the determined conduct of Eryamenes, (contemporary with Ptolemy Philadelphus, A. D. 235-247,) who entered the sanctuary at the head of a faithful band of soldiers, and massacred all |