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JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE 



UP THE NILE BETWEEN PHIL^E AND IBRIM IN NUBIA, * 



IN THE MONTH OF MAY, IS 14. 

 {BY CAPT. LIGHT.] 



Mr. Legh and his companion have communicated some valuable remarks concerning 

 parts of Nubia: and the following journal of Captain Light will give additional inform- 

 ation respecting the antiquities of the country, and the manners of the people. 



The conquests of the Mahometans and the destruction of Christianity have been followed 

 in Nubia, as in other parts of the Turkish empire, by the most complete depopulation 

 and barbarism. Seventeen bishoprics were formerly enumerated in the different pro- 

 vinces of Nubia; the towns of Ibrim and Dongola were under the jurisdiction of two 

 of them. " Mais faute de Pasteurs" (says Vansleb f), "le Christianisme est aujourd'hui 

 entierement eteint dans tout ce royaume." The Oases also were once peopled by many 

 Coptic Christians : and the names of some of the Bishops who presided over that district 

 are mentioned in the history of the Patriarchs of Alexandria. Part of the first epistle 

 of St. Paul to the Corinthians, published by Munter and Georgi in a dialect different 

 from that of the Memphitic or Saidic is supposed to have been written in the language 

 of the people of the Oases. 



The author of the Kitab el Fehrest speaks cf the Nubian characters %', and the Nubian lan- 

 guage is mentioned by Macrizy (Desc. de l'Eg. torn. ii. fol. 180.) ; but Syrian, Coptic, 

 and Greek letters were adopted by the inhabitants, when Christianity was introduced 

 among them ; and we learn from Abou Selah that their liturgy and prayers were in 

 Greek; the same thing is also stated by Abdallah of Assouan. § As late as the begin- 

 ning of the fifteenth century, the time when Macrizy wrote, the women and children of 

 Upper Egypt had a perfect acquaintance with Greek. The Arabic language has 

 gradually prevailed in that country ; but in Nubia, Captain Light found that a know- 

 ledge of it was of little use to the traveller. A different idiom is there spoken; and this 

 is pointed out by Leo Africanus in the following passage : " Beyond Assouan are villages 

 peopled by men of black colour, whose language is a mixture of Arabic, Egyptian, and 

 ^Ethiopian." — Quatremere Rech. sur 1'Egypte. — Ed. 



Assouan, May 7. — I arrived at Assouan, anciently Syene. in the 

 usual course by a boat from Boulac. Hence I found the navigation 



* " La "Nubie commence au bourg nomme al-Kasr, situe a 5 milles de la ville d' Assouan." 

 — From the History of Nubia, by Abdallah native of Assouan. — See Quatremere, Mem. 

 Geog. sur 1'Egypte. f Hist, de l'Eg. d'Alex. p. 30. 



X The Bashmouric was supposed to be the language of the Nubian?, by Longuerue; but 

 this opinion has been controverted by Quatremere, who has shown that the Bashmourites 

 were inhabitants of Lower Egypt. — Rech. sur l'Egy. 163. 



§ Quoted by Quatremere, p. 23. in his Memoire sur la Nubie. 



