Extracts from Philosophical and. Scientific Journals. | 
‘of the hand); this; also,does not occur, 
‘either in ancient or in modern Egypt,; 
makifig $éyeral at different tintes of the 
daar? a8} ta nue , : 1% 
hei” follow ‘twe copies of an“ In- 
se 
laerevs ‘wall of the\ great; stair- 
cases among the ruins of Meraurat, 
robably the ancient Meroe,’ as copied 
by®Linant, the other by Mahomet the 
old) interpreter and: janissary who ac- 
companied him; with an attempt to 
detypher the same.] © 
The passage in Pliny, which I have 
myreye upon, is this: “ nuper renunci- 
avere principi Neroni missi ab eo milites 
pretoriani cum’ tribuno ad exploran- 
dum.” They brought word that “ 4:di- 
ficia oppidi —pauca; regnare foeminam 
Candaocen, quod nomen multis jam 
annis ad reginas transiit. Delubrum 
Hammonis et ibi religiosum, et toto 
tractu ‘sacella.” ; 
Phe god, whois represented receiving 
the offerings upon the columns of the 
great temple, has the rams head, as at 
Diospolisand at Siwah; and there is 
sufficientevidence of the truth of the 
remainder of the paragraph in the ves- 
tiges-of other religious structures which 
remain.) ° 
‘twas, indeed, this short passage in 
Plinysthat gave me so keen an appetite 
for having that region well explored. 
‘Another accordance with the history 
ofta country, about which. we know so 
little; has struck me exceedingly : it is 
inthe circumstance of the Royal Per- 
sofiage*represented in the sepulchral 
chapels:attached to the numerous pyra- 
mids; with the: diadem, and in the act 
either of slaying, or of being presented 
tovthe god, being in many instances 
female; a-circumstance rarely, if ever, 
seemyins Egypt, and seeming to stand 
there in proofof the reign of the several 
Candaces, whom we read of in history ; 
a name which, Pliny says, was common 
tothemy and which, doubtiess, was sim- 
plysein»ABthiopic, the word signifying 
— » Some points are observa- 
ble: also in» these figures, which are re- 
markable, as being in conformity with 
the present »usages and, prejudices of 
that barbarous country. The Queen is 
r ited .with nails as long as the 
ofa bird, a particular never ob- 
ble in Egyptian sculptures, neither 
isgthere any such modern usage. in 
pty but in the upper country about 
Senny’ar and Merée this is very general 
amongst the women. There is also re- 
presented, in the same sculptures, a sort 
»which, though worn on one fin-. 
nly, basa broad, plate attached to . 
itpwhieh ex 
across the. whole back 
pMomeury 
Ac, No, 400, 
but is ‘cémnion in the districts: where; 
these sculptures occur, with the women, 
to this day. Again, the form and out- 
line of these Candaces are! very remark- 
able, and quite without example, on the 
storied buildings, lower down upon the 
Nile; the form below. the waist, being | / 
almost that of the Hottentot’ Venus, 
both as to the hips and behind, Thisis 
considered in Abyssinia asa great mark 
of distinction and high birth. There 
was, when I first went to Jerusalem, an 
Abyssinian Princess there, upon,a pil- 
erimage, the daughter of a deceased: 
King, most remarkably proud «in this 
respect, and who piqued herself greatly, 
upon it. I have heard.an English Lady, 
say, that she could not believe the pecu~ 
liarity to be natural ‘till she saw the; 
lady in the bath. None but the Queens) . 
are honoured with this figure in the bas- 
reliefs, the female attendants and the 
goddesses being as slender and as scanty 
as elsewhere upon the Nile. 
seem to have been the same as in Egypt, 
only there is one with a sort of lotus... 
head, that I do not feel well acquainted. . 
with ; and the lion-headed Isis has, in 
one instance, both her head and_ her, 
arms tripled, so as to bear a great affi- 
nity to the Indian deities. 
The country is not like Egypt, but ' 
covered with herbage and abounding in 
forests, with monkeys leaping and chat- 
tering in the branches: this circum- 
stance, the historical sculptures lower 
down had led me to expect, where the 
conqueror (probably Sesostris) is repre- 
sented chasing a naked people with flat,_, 
noses and thick lips into forests, In, - 
which monkeys are sitting, evidently , 
placed there to designate and characte~ 
rize the country where the event took . 
place. 
Linant observed no. parrots, though 
Pliny very exactly sets down (on the. 
authority of the spies) the name of the — 
place where they are first found in fol- 
lowing the Nile upwards; always taking . 
it for granted that Psittacus should be . 
so translated, of which I, am by no , 
means sure, Both Linant, . however, 
and an attendant. who was with him, 
speak in high terms of the beautiful 
plumage of many of the birds which. 
they saw (several of the skins they haye _ 
brought with them, but I have not yet 
got them from Milford), and of the shrill 
cries and discordant notes which pro.» 
ceed from them, especially about day-» 
break. The This,.so commort in ancient” 
4 oO “a Par MP Sry We Ss oO dines? 
649 >: 
The gods); 
> 
