544 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 
But had the centurions gone to Gojam, they would have 
pafled a hundred miles of a more verdant and more beauti- 
ful country before arriving there. The pfittaci aves, or the 
paroquets, which they very properly obferved were firft feen 
in Meroé, that 1s, in Atbara, would have been fou ght for in 
vain in Gojam,-a cold country ; whereas the paroquet’s de- 
light is in the low, or hot country, where there is always va- 
riety of fruit; neither could Prolemy’s obfervation, nor thofe 
two jut eset by Pliny, be admitted, after any fort of 
modification whatever. 
Srraso remarks of the fituation of Meroé, that it was 
placed upon the verge of the tropical rains; and, with his 
ufual accuracy and good fenfe, he wonders the regularity 
of thefe tropical rains, as to their coming and duration, was 
not known earlier, when, fo many occafions had offered to 
obferve them at Meroé before his time. The fame author 
fays, that the fun is vertical at Meroé forty-five days ‘before 
the fummer folftice ; fo that this too will place that ifland 
in lat. 16° 44’, very little different from the latitude that 
Prolemy gives it. Erom all which circumftances we may 
venture to maintain, that very few places in ancient geo- 
graphy have their fituations more ftridtly defined, or by a 
greater variety of circumftances, than the ifland of Atbara or 
Meroé. But fuppofing the cafe were otherwife, there is not 
one of thefe circumftances that I know of, that could be ad- 
‘duced with any effect to _ prove Gojam to be Meroé, as Le 
Grande and the Jefuits have vainly afferted. 
Ar half paft eleven o’clock in the forenoon of the arft 
of October, having fpent the whole day in winding through 
vallies, and the bare hills of the Acaba, we alighted in a 
2 ave, ~ wood 
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