30 ANCIENT KNOWLEDGE OF AFRICA. 



generally to all countries inhabited by black people. The 

 region, however, which extends for several hundred miles 

 along the Nile above Egypt, formed the ancient Ethiopia, 

 a sacred realm, in which the priests placed the most revered 

 objects of their mythology. ' Here Jove repaired to hold his 

 annual festival ; and here was spread the table of the sun, 

 which, when exposed to the rays of that great luminary, 

 was believed of its own accord to take fire and be consumed. 

 Hence, according to some, Egypt derived all the sciences 

 and arts which rendered her illustrious in that early age. 

 Diodorus even asserts that the learned language of Egypt 

 was the same spoken by the vulgar in Ethiopia ; but we 

 fihould much rather believe with Herodotus, that the latter 

 xiountry derived from Egypt all w^hich she possessed of art 

 and civilization. The sovereigns of Ethiopia are said to 

 have received a wild and peculiar homage, in being attended 

 to the tomb by a number of their wives, courtiers, and ser- 

 vants, all eagerly canvassing for this honour, — a practice 

 of savage life still extensively prevalent in pagan Africa. 

 According to Diodorus, this veneration was carried to so 

 lingular a pitch, that if the king lost a leg or an arm, each 

 of his courtiers presently severed from himself the same 

 ipember. The priests, however, whose influence in this 

 iealm of superstition was always paramount, appear at one 

 time to have become quite supreme ; reducing the sovereign 

 to a state of entire dependence. Lastly, it may be inferred, 

 both from classic and sacred writers, that Ethiopia, in the 

 first century, was governed by a female monarch, who ap- 

 pears to have borne the hereditary name of Candace. 



The Greeks settled in Egypt, especially during the wise 

 and able government of the Ptolemies, carried on a consi- 

 <Jerable navigation along the eastern coast of the Red Sea, 

 which, as they held the continent to be bounded by the 

 Nile, they accounted scarcely African ; but upon this sub- 

 ject we must follow modern ideas. Ptolemy Euergetes 

 seems to have conquered part of Abyssinia, forming it into 

 a kingdom, of which Axum was the capital ; and fine re- 

 mains of Grecian architecture still attest the fact of this 

 x^ity having been a great and civilized metropolis. Every 

 ancient description, however, represents the native inha- 

 bitants of these shores as existing in a state of the most 

 lextreme barbarity and wretchedness. They are classed by 



