44 MINES OF CHAP. II. 



of time ; the remains of ancient Egyptian build- 

 ings on the road to the spot show that the period 

 of their working must have been very remote. 

 It is highly probable they were productive 

 until the end of the .sovereignty of the Pha- 

 raohs ; and, according to Theophrastus 1 , the 

 produce was the property of the monarchs, as 

 they will be of the present pacha of Egypt, 

 if the attempts he is reported to be making to 

 open these mines anew should be attended with 

 success. An Arabian author, Massudi, quoted 

 by Quatremere, calls the place Kharbal, and says, 

 it is in a mountainous desert, eight days' jour- 

 ney from the Nile ; and that some mines were 

 worked near that place till the fourteenth or fif- 

 teenth century. If this last assertion be correct, 

 it may not be too much to suppose that the dis- 

 covery of the mines of America might have ex- 

 tended their influence so far as to make the work- 

 ing of these Nubian mines an unprofitable opera- 

 tion. It is however probable, that if these mines 

 were continued to the late period noticed by the 

 Arabian writer, the operations must have been 

 carried on upon a very contracted scale. 



We may find in the history of that country 

 sufficient causes, in the sufferings inflicted on it 

 by civil dissensions and by foreign invasions, to 

 account for the abandonment of a pursuit so little 



1 Theophrastus de Lapidibus. 



