MACOWAR. 
321 
should therefore be able to detect any falsity they might advance, 
that at a little distance from the village in the harbour, were some 
ruins, and large tanks, that bespoke ancient magnificence. I can 
also assert that the mountains which, from Port Mornington, have 
kept at a considerable distance from the shore, here again ap- 
proach it, a circumstance which confirms the description of the 
Arabian authors, and the statement of Diodorus, that the mines were 
situated on the confines of Egypt, and near to Arabia and Ethiopia, 
consequently on the shore of the Arabian Gulf. 
To the question, why are these valuable mines no longer worked? 
it would be difficult to give any positive answer. We find by 
the account of Diodorus, that it was only by the most violent ex- 
ertions that the Ptolemies were able to work them ; and that so 
dreadful was the slavery of those, whom force alone had driven 
to the employment, that death was considered as preferable to 
such a life. He also represents the veins of gold as running in an 
irregular manner between the strata of rock. It is probable, there- 
fore, that the difficulty of procuring it increased; and that the 
heavy hand of power being removed, no people were found who 
would voluntarily undertake so dreadfully laborious an employ- 
ment. These mines may however be again worked in some future 
period, since the science of modern times has so much improved 
and facilitated the operations of mining ; but whether this is a " con- 
summation devoutly to be wished," for the sake of the inhabitants, 
is, I think, a matter of considerable uncertainty. 
Although I was not so fortunate as to reach Macowar, yet I was 
sufficiently near to it to convince myself, that the accounts I had 
received at Massowah and Suakin of its actual position, were 
