650 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER. 
I sHAtL begin by giving my reafons why Gojam is not 
Meroé: and, firft, Diodorus* tells us, this ifland had its‘name 
from a fitter of Cambyfes, king of Perfia, who died there in 
the expedition that prince had undertaken againft Ethiopia. 
Now, Cambyfes’s army perifhed in the defert immediately 
to the fouthward, after he had pafled Meroé, confequently 
he never was in Gojam, nor within 200 miles of it; his mo- 
ther, therefore, could not have died there, nor would his 
army have perifhed with hunger if he had arrived in Go- 
jam, or near it, for he would then have been in one of the: 
moft plentiful countries in the world. 
Tue next reafon to prove that Gojam is not Meroé, is;. 
that that ifland was inclofed between the Aftaboras and the 
Nile, but Gojam is furrounded entirely by the Nile; there 
is no other river than it that can, or ever did, pafs for the 
Aftaboras, whofe fituation was diftant, and which, retaining 
its ancient name, cannot be miftaken, for it is at this day 
called Atbara. Again, as the ancients knew Meroé, if Go- 
jam had been Meroé, they muft have known the fountains: 
of the Nile; and this we are fure they did not.. 
On the other hand, Pliny fays, Meroé, the moft confider- 
able of all the iflands of the Nile, is called Aftaboras, from 
the name of its left channel—* Circa clarifiimam earum Meroén, 
“ Aftabores levo alveo didtus; +” which cannot defcribe any other 
place than the confluence of thofe two rivers, the Nile and. 
Atbara. The fame author fays farther, that the fun is ver- 
tical twice a-year, once when proceeding ‘northward he 
° ee enters 
* Diod. Sicul. Bibliothec. lib. i. p. 20. + Plin. Nat. Hift. lib. v. cap. g. 
