36G Letters of an African Traveller. 



which alone might enrich, and give reputation to a museum. 

 Why were not you with me in that hour when I found in the 

 great Thebes the whole world ? 



Having so opportune a motive, I directed to you from thence 

 a letter. Tearing myself away as it were by force from the 

 divine Hecatompylos, I passed Armuntis, Crocodilopolis, Lato- 

 polis, and Apollinopolis the Great, saluting afterwards amongst 

 its pleasing hills the remote Syene. 



Having visited the temples of that frontier, and the well that 

 was the looking-glass of the sun, and the island Elephantina 

 (or Elephantine Island,) the abode of Emefet, I joined the 

 illustrious party of my lord Belmore, intent upon visiting 

 Nubia, and having passed the last cataract, improperly 

 called the first, the caves of granite, and the sumptuous 

 edifices of Philoe, &c., reached Sieg Ibsambal the antient Abo- 

 ceis, abandoned to Petronius by the unfortunate Candace, 

 and where is still the best monument of Ethiopia, re-opened by 

 the order of the aforesaid Mr. Salt, by our Belzoni, and by us 

 another time when the Nisis had covered it with sand. The 

 name of Mr. Salt is dear to the republic of the literati, and to 

 amateurs of travels, by calling to their remembrance the inte- 

 resting accounts of Abyssinia. 



From Ibsambal passing over to Ischiet, we met Daud 

 Kaschef, one of the seventy children of Hassan, who received 

 us with an agreeable politeness, under a throne of palms in a 

 field. Oh, if you had seen how different from our own are the 

 customs of the people of Nubia ! 



Here captain Correy, brother of lord Belmore, and myself, 

 were seized with the desire of passing the penultimate cata- 

 ract, in order to arrive by the way of Sennar at the pleasant 

 island of Meroe, which is the Saba conquered by Moses before 

 the high mission, when under the name of Sontifanti he enjoyed 

 high credit at the court of Pharaoh. 



We were immersed in the new project, when some people of 

 the provinces subject to the Grand Negus told us, that the 

 Mamelukes confined in Dongola by the brave Mahomet Ali, 

 notably suspected all those who came from Egypt ; wherefore 

 we retroceded, and the 26th December, 1817, I cut out the 



