298 Mr. Bankes's Lettei's on 



Art. y\l\.^Extracts of Letters from W. J. Bankes, Esq., 

 containing an Account of Mr. Linant'I Expedition to 

 Senna'ar, icitk a Latin Inscription from Merge. 



Soughton-haU, NortJwp, N. W., Nov. 26, 1824. 



My dear Sir, 



I have to communicate to you a piece of intelli- 

 gence, which, I am sure, will give you pleasure. My great tra- 

 veller, Monsieur Linant, is at length with me, and has brought 

 with him, in safety, the harvest of his journey to Napata and Meroe, 

 and into the country beyond Senna'ar. There are maps and plans 

 of every thing connected with his route, together with a very de- 

 tailed journal, and about a hundred and fifty most beautiful draw- 

 ings, all extremely detailed and minute, and some of them upon a 

 very large scale. I find the ruins at Meroe magnificent beyond all 

 expectation ; but what interests me the most in their appearance is 

 the striking admixture, which is very visible in them, of the Persian 

 with the Egyptian style, and this not in the sculptured subjects only, 

 but in the architecture also ; no such resemblance being at all dis- 

 coverable in any other ruins of that country, nor any where lower 

 down upon the Nile. Surely this seems to be a wonderful con- 

 firmation of the tradition mentioned by Strabo, that Cambyses was 

 the founder, and called the city Meroe, after the name of a wife or 

 a sister, it was doubtful which : it seems to me probable tliat she 

 was both ; and if there be really any truth in the tradition cited, the 

 circumstance recorded in the same passage, that the King carried 

 Egyptians with him, will very suflSciently account for the edifice not 

 being purely Persian, butrather of a mixed and grafted style. The bas- 

 reliefs, however, seem to partake more of Persian than of Egyptian 

 details. Strabo says of Cambyses : YIqor,Xbc xa.1 fj^ix?^ ''^^ Mnqons 

 META TON AirTnXmN. Hxl ^r, xxl rolnoiAO. rri ts vwco, 

 xasi rr) iioKst Tovro TTxq' kxelvou rsS'^vai (paemv, e>cs7 tris «S'£X(p7}f 

 a.'Kobtx.mvbrtS auru Msgorij-' oj Se yvvouKa (poojt. rm I'nuyvixlocv 

 oi/v £j(,!Zg[cr«TO aiirri tj/ao/v t'/jv av9'gwrov. And Herodotus states, 

 in his Thalia, that Cambyses was married to two of his sisters, 

 though it is plain also, from the same passage, that it was contrary 



