Chap. 35.] 
ACCOUNT OF COUNTEIES, ETC. 
101 
right hand channel of the river. The buildings in the city, 
they said, were but few in number, and they stated that a 
female, whose name was Candace, ruled over the district, 
that name having passed from queen to queen for many 
years. They related also that there was a temple of Jupiter 
Hammon there, held in great veneration, besides smaller 
shrines erected in honour of him throughout all the country. 
In addition to these particulars, they were informed that in 
the days of the ^Ethiopian dominion, the island of Meroe 
enjoyed great renown, and that, according to tradition, it 
was in the habit of maintaining two hundred thousand armed 
men, and four thousand artisans. The kings of ^Ethiopia 
are s,aid even at the present day to be forty-five in number. 
(30.) The whole of this country has successively had the 
names of -^theria,^^ Atlantia, and last of all, ^Ethiopia, from 
JEthiops, the son of Yulcan. It is not at all surprising that 
towards the extremity of this region the men and animals 
assume a monstrous form, when we consider the change- 
ableness and volubility of fire, the heat of which is the 
great agent in imparting various forms and shapes to bodies. 
Indeed, it is reported that in the interior, on the eastern 
side, there is a people that have no noses, the whole face 
presenting a plane surface ; that others again are destitute of 
the upper lip, and others are without tongues. Others again, 
have the mouth grown together, and being destitute of nostrils, 
breathe through one passage only, imbibing their drink 
through it by means of the hollow stalk of the oat, which 
there grows spontaneously and supplies them with its grain 
for food. Some of these nations have to employ gestures 
by nodding the head and moving the limbs, instead of speech. 
Others again were unacquainted with the use of fire be- 
fore the time of Ptolemy Lathyrus, king of Egypt. Some 
writers have also stated that there is a nation of Pygmies, 
which dwells among the marshes in which the river Mle takes 
its rise ; while on the coast of -Slthiopia, where we paused,^'* 
'2 Hesychius says that it was also called Aeria, probably from the time 
of its king -^gyptus, who was called Aerius. 
33 " Ubi desiimus." This appears to be a preferable reading to " ubi 
desinit," adopted by Sillig, and apparently referring to the river Nile. 
It is not improbable that our author here alludes, as Hardouin says, to his 
words in the preceding Chapter, Hinc in ora JEthiopise," &c. See p. 96. 
