650 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



I shall begin by giving my reafons why Gojam is iioe 

 Meroe' : and, firil, Diodorus * tells us, this ifland had its name 

 from a filler of Cambyfes, king of Perfia, who died there in 

 the expedition that prince had undertaken againft Ethiopia. 

 Now, Cambyfes's army periflied in the defert immediately 

 to the fouthward, after he had palled Meroe, confequently 

 he never was in Gojam, nor within 200 miles of it ; his mo- 

 ther, therefore, could not have died there, nor would hi3 

 army have periflied with hunger if he had arrived in Go- 

 jam, or near it, for he would then have been in one of the: 

 moll plentiful countries in the world. 



The next reafon to prove that Gojam is not Meroe, s r 

 that that illand was inclofed between the Allaboras and the 

 Nile, but Gojam is furrounded entirely by the Nile ; there 

 is no other river than it that can, or ever did, pafs for the 

 Allaboras, whofe fituation was dillant, and which, retaining 

 its ancient name, cannot be millaken, for it is at this day 

 called Atbara. Again, as the ancients knew Meroe, if Go- 

 jam had been Meroe, they mull have known the fountains- 

 of the Nile ; and this we are fure they did not. 



On the other hand, Pliny fays, Meroe, the moll conllder- 

 able of all the illands of the Nile, is called Allaboras, from 

 the name of its left channel — "Circa daciffhnam earum Meroe//, 

 " dftabores h?vo aheo dltlus; f" which cannot defcribe any other 

 place than the confluence of thofe two rivers, the Nile and 

 Atbara. The fame author fays farther, that the fun is ver- 

 tical twice a-year, once when proceeding northward he 



enters 



* Piod. SicuL Eibliothec. lib. i. p. 20. \ Plin. Nat.Hift. lib. v. cap. 9. 



