222 Dr Beke on the Sources of the Nile 



name, Mono or Manx, is of frequent occurrence in the desig- 

 nations 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 be king or 

 ruler. The second component, Moezi, which alone is pro- 

 perly the name of the country, has the signification of mooti : 

 in Savv^hili and Mucardnga (i. e. Mono-Moezi), the word is 

 moezi; in Bunda, moegi; in Miyao (Moujou), mueze ; in Kongo, 

 muezi ; in Mozambique, mdise ;* and in Kanika (Wanika) and 

 M'segua, muezi.\ The Sawdhilis (in Arabic ^X> '>«- a dweller 

 on the coast, from J^^^l*- coast), among whom the word is 

 thus significant, are the inhabitants of the sea-coast of Zindj, 

 or Zangebar ; and I conceive that the Greek navigators and 

 traders of Alexandria, who, from the time of Hippalus's dis- 

 covery of the monsoons in the middle of the first century of 

 our era,J frequented the east coast of Africa (even if they had 

 not done so previously), § obtained from these Sawahilis, or 

 dwellers on the coast, the particulars respecting the eastern 

 portion of that continent and the sources of the Nile which 

 are recorded by the geographer Ptolemy ; and that, as it was 

 not an unusual practice of the Greeks to translate significant 

 proper names into the equivalents in their own language,!! 



* Journ. Roy. Qeogr. Soc, vol. xvii., p. 75, note. 



t Zeitschrift der Deutschen morffenldndiichen Gesellschaft, vol. i., p. 55. 



X Pliny, Hist. Nat., lib. x., cap. xxvi. ; Vincent, Commerce and Navigation of 

 the Ancients, vol. i., p. 49, et seq. 



§ Subsequently to the voyage of Nearchus, B.C. 326, the trade to India had 

 already been carried on by the Greeks of Egypt, though it would appear to 

 have been inconsiderable till the Romans possessed that country, when it re- 

 ceived an immense development. Strabo tells us (lib. ii., cap. iv., sec. 5, p. 118), 

 that at the time of the expedition into Arabia of JElius Gallus, A.D. 25, as 

 many as 120 vessels belonging to the Greeks of Alexandria sailed yearly for 

 India, from Myos Ilormos in the Red Sea. This was probably a quarter of a 

 century before the Hippalus, or south-west monsoon, was first made use of by 

 the hardy seaman w^jo gave his name to that wind. 



II For example, ClJ^ Q', the sea oi Edom (D"l{i{ = red), became 'Egu^gA 

 SaXaffCa, the Red Sea. In Origines £iblic(e, vol. i., p. 245, I have adduced 

 several instances of Hebrew proper names, which have, in like manner, been 

 translated into Greek. 



