Mr. Linant's Expedition to Egypt, 301 



The passage in Pliny, which I have my eye upon, is this : '^ nuper 

 renunciavere principi Neroni missi ab eo mihtes prsetoriani cum 

 tribuno ad explorandum." They brought word that " jEdificia 

 oppidi pauca; regnare foeminam Candaocen, quod nomen multis 

 jam annis ad reginas transiit. Delubrum Hammonis et ibi reli- 

 giosum, et toto tractu sacella." The god, who is represented re- 

 ceiving the offerings upon the columns of the great temple, has the 

 ram's head, as at Diospolis and at Siwah ; and there is sufficient 

 evidence of the truth of the remainder of the paragraph in the ves- 

 tiges of other religious structures which remain. 



It was, indeed, this shor^ passage in Pliny that gave me so keen 

 an appetite for having that region well explored. 



Another accordance with the history of a country, about which 

 we know so little, has struck me exceedingly : it is in the circum- 

 stance of the Royal Personage represented in the sepulchral chapels 

 attached to the numerous pyramids, with the diadem, and in the 

 act either of slaying, or of being presented to the god, being in 

 many instances female; a circumstance rarely, if ever, seen in 

 Egypt, and seeming to stand there in proof of the reign of the 

 several Candaces, whom we read of in history ; a name which, 

 Pliny says, was common to them, and which, doubtless, was simply, 

 in ^thiopic, the word signifying tlie Queen. Some points are ob- 

 servable also in these figures, which are remarkable as being in con- 

 formity with the present usages and prejudices of that barbarous 

 country. The Queen is represented with nails as long as the talons 

 of a bird, a particular never observable in Egyptian sculptures, 

 neither is there any such modern usage in Egypt, but in the upper 

 country about Senna'ar and Meroe this is very general amongst the 

 women. There is also represented in the same sculptures a sort of 

 ring, which, though worn on one finger only, has a broad plate 

 attached to it, which extends across the whole back of the hand ; 

 this also docs not occur, cither in ancient or in modern Egypt, but 

 is common in the districts where these sculptures occur, with the 

 women, to this day. Again, the form and outline of these Candaces 

 are very remarkable, and quite without example, on the storied 

 buildings, lower down. upon the Nile; the form below the waist 



