248 NOETH-EAST AFEICA. 



The numerous inscriptions collected at Meroë have resulted in the discovery of 

 the names of thirty sovereigns who were at once kings and high-priests, and the very 

 name of the city has been identified as Meru, or Merua. At the period when these 

 pyramids were built, hieroglyphics had become an obsolete form of writing, the 

 exact sense of which was no longer understood, and which was reproduced by 

 imitation ; hence many errors crept into the copy, so that their decipherment has 

 been rendered very difficult and uncertain. Most of these inscriptions are in the 

 Demotic Ethiopian character, derived from that of the Egyptians, but possessing 

 only thirty letters. In these inscriptions, not yet completely deciphered, savants 

 have attempted to trace the ancient language of the Blemmyes, the ancestors of the 

 Bejas. 



Opposite Meroë, on the western bank of the Nile, was apparently situated the 

 public cemetery of the great city ; considerable spaces are here covered with small 

 pyramids, imitations in miniature of those of the great personages buried on the 

 right bank of the river. 



MeTAMMEH — KaMARA — GrALÂBAT. 



In the basin of the Atbara, which bounds on the east the peninsula called by 

 the ancients the " Island of Meroë," there are at present very few towns, in spite 

 of the general fertility of the valleys and the healthy climate enjoyed by so large 

 a portion of this territory. Most of them are mere market-places, swarming with 

 people during the fairs, the next day abandoned. Amongst these " towns " inserted 

 on the maps of the Sudan, some are mere clearings in the forest or broaches on the 

 banks of the rivers ; the largest are Gorgur and Dongiir, situated to the west of the 

 Abyssinian plateau, in the country of the Dabaina Arabs and the " Shangalla " 

 Negroes. 



Metamraeh, capital of the territory of Galâbat, and often called by the name of 

 its province, is during the dry season the most active centre of the exchanges 

 between the plains of the Bejas and the Abyssinian plateaux. To the south stand 

 the abrupt escarpments of Râs-el-Fil, or the " Elephant's Head." As an emporium 

 Metammeh has succeeded to Kamara, a village situated in the vicinity. Compared 

 with the surrounding groups of huts, it is almost a large town ; with the "tokuls" 

 scattered in the suburbs in the midst of tobacco, cotton, and durra plantations, it 

 covers a space of about 40 square miles. Although plundered by the hordes of 

 Theodore, it soon regained all its importance ; the hills skirting the Meshareh, an 

 affluent of the Atbara, were again covered with huts in which the merchants 

 warehoused their goods. The Arabs, Funj, and Bejas, have returned to the market, 

 and brick houses, whose ground floors are filled with merchandise, now surround the 

 market-place. Some five or six thousand traders, mostly Arabs, assemble at 

 Metammeh, and over a thousand Abyssinians, porters, wood-cutters, and retailers 

 of mead descend from their mountains to collect the crumbs of the feast. Many 

 crocodiles sport in the waters of the Meshareh, and betray no fear of the vast 



