Dr. Beke ow the Sources of the Nile. 109 



tains. And that portion of this range which bounds the 

 country of Mono-Moezi, and which lies in a general direction 

 to the west or north-west of the island of Zanzibar, corre- 

 sponds so satisfactorily with the " Mountains of the Moon," 

 described by Ptolemy as lying on the western side of the 

 country of the Anthropophagi who dwelt on the shores of 

 the Barbarian Gulf near Menuthias, that we may, with every 

 show of reason, consider the identification as absolute, and 

 place here the source of Ptolemy's eastern arm of the Nile. 



The name Mojio-Moezi itself affords a strong argument in 

 corroboration of this conclusion. This expression is a com- 

 pound word, significant in many of the languages of the Kafir 

 class, which are spoken throughout the entire continent of 

 Africa south of the Equator, as far as the limits of the Hot- 

 tentots. The first component of this name, Mono or Mani, 

 is of frequent occurrence in the designations of countries in 

 Southern Africa, such as Mani-Congo, Mani-Puto (as the 

 Portuguese possessions in Africa are called), Mono-Motapa, 

 &c. ; and its meaning appears to he king or ruler. The second 

 component, Mo^zi, which alone is properly the name of the 

 country, has the signification of 7noo?i in the languages and 

 dialects of the Sawahilis and of the natives of the countries of 

 Mono-Moezi, Congo, Mozambique, and various others. The 

 Sawahilis, among whom the word is thus significant, are the 

 inhabitants of the sea-coast of Zindj, or Zangebar ; and I con- 

 ceive that the Greeks of Alexandria who traded with that coast, 

 obtained from these Sawahilis the particulars respecting the 

 eastern portion of the African continent and the sources of the 

 Nile, which are recorded by their countryman the geographer 

 Ptolemy; and that, as it was not an unusual practice among the 

 Greeks to translate significant proper names into the equiva- 

 lents in their own language, the designation given by Ptolemy 

 to the mountains in which those sources are situate — XeXtjvrjii 

 opo^if " the mountains, or hill country, of the moon " — is simply 

 a translation of the Sawahili expression, " the Mountains of 

 Moezi*." 



* The discovery of Mount Kilimandjaro, covered with perpetual snow, 

 recently announced by the Rev. J. Rebmann (see Church Missionary 

 Intelligencer for May 1849, vol. i. p. 17 et seq.), affords an additional 

 argument in support of the above hypothesis. Ptolemy states that " the 

 lakes of the Nile receive the snows of the Mountains of the Moon;" the 

 upper course of the direct stream of the river has been carried southwards 

 to about 2° S. lat. and 34° E. long. : and Mount Kilimandjaro, which is 

 crossed by the road from the coast to the country of Mono-Moezi, is placed 

 by Mr. Rebmann in 3° 40' S. lat. and 36° E. long. Hence the snow-capped 

 Kilimandj&ro may be regarded as forming part of the " Mountains of the 

 Moon (Vloezi)," in which the Nile has its origin. 



Mr. Rebmann mentions that the natives have no specific name for snow. 



