Chap. 36.] ACCOUNT OF COUNTRIES, ETC. 101 



right hand channel of the river. The buildings in the city, 

 they said, were but few in number, and they stated that a 

 female, whose name was Candace, ruled over the district, 

 that name having passed from queen to queen for many 

 years. They related also that there was a temple of Jupiter 

 Haminon there, held in great veneration, besides smaller 

 shrines erected in honour of him throughout all the country. 

 In addition to these particulars, they were informed that in 

 the days of the ^Ethiopian dominion, the island of Meroe 

 enjoyed great renown, and that, according to tradition, it 

 was in the habit of maintaining two hundred thousand armed 

 men, and four thousand artisans. The kings of -^Ethiopia 

 are said even at the present day to be forty-five in number. 



(30.) The whole of this country has successively had the 

 names of ^Etheria, 32 Atlantia, and last of all, ^Ethiopia, from 

 -<Ethiops, the son of Vulcan. It is not at all surprising that 

 towards the extremity of this region the men and animals 

 assume a monstrous form, when we consider the change- 

 ableness and volubility of fire, the heat of which is the 

 great agent in imparting various forms and shapes to bodies. 

 Indeed, it is reported that in the interior, on the eastern 

 side, there is a people that have no noses, the whole face 

 presenting a plane surface ; that others again are destitute of 

 the upper lip, and others are without tongues. Others again, 

 have the mouth grown together, and being destitute of nostrils, 

 breathe through one passage only, imbibing their drink 

 through it by means of the hollow stalk of the oat, which 

 there grows spontaneously and supplies them with its grain 

 for food. Some of these nations have to employ gestures 

 by nodding the head and moving the limbs, instead of speech. 

 Others again were unacquainted with the use of fire be- 

 fore the time of Ptolemy Lathy rus, king of Egypt. Some 

 writers have also stated that there is a nation of Pygmies, 

 which dwells among the marshes in which the river Nile takes 

 its rise ; while on the coast of Ethiopia, where we paused, 38 



92 Hesychius says that it was also called Aeria, probably from the time 

 of its king JEgyptus, who was called Aerius. 



33 " Ubi desiimus." This appears to be a preferable reading to " ubi 

 desinit," adopted by Sillig, and apparently referring to the river Nile. 

 It is not improbable that our author here alludes, as Hardouin says, to his- 

 words in the preceding Chapter, " Hinc in ora ^Ethiopia," &c. See p. 96. 



