THE SOURCE OF THE RILE. 37^ 



The prodigious fragments of colofTal flames of the dog- 

 ftar, ftill to be feen at Axum, fufficiently fhew what a ma- 

 terial object of their attention they confidered him to be ; 

 and Seir, which in the language of the Troglodytes, and 

 in that of the low country of Meroe, exactly correfponding 

 to it, fignifies a dog, inftructs Us in the reafon why this 

 province was called Sire, and the large river which bounds 

 it, Siris. 



I apprehend the reafon why, without forfaking their 

 ancient domiciles in the mountains, they chofe this iitua- 

 tion for another city, Meroe, was owing to an imperfection 

 they had difcovered (both in Sire and in their caves below 

 it) to refult from their climate. They were within the 

 tropical rains ; and, confequently, were impeded and inter- 

 rupted in the necenary obfervations of the heavenly bodies, 

 and the progrefs of aftronomy which they fo warmly culti- 

 vated. They muft have feen, likewife, a neceffity of building 

 Meroe farther from them than perhaps they wifhed, for the 

 fame reafon they built Axum in the high country of Abyf- 

 finia in order to avoid the fly (a phenomenon of which I 

 fhall afterwards fpeak) which purfued them everywhere 

 within the limits of the rains, and which muft have given 

 an abfolute law in thofe lirft times to the regulations of 

 the Culhite fettlements. They therefore went the length 

 of lat. 1 6°, where I faw the ruins fuppofed to be thofe of 

 Meroe*, and caves in the mountains immediately above that 

 fituation, which I cannot doubt were the temporary habita- 

 tion of the builders of that firft feminary of learning. 



3B2 It 



* At Gerri in my return through the defert. 



