Chap. 10.] ACCOUOT OP COTJNTEIES, ETC. 
411 
snows and rains of Mauritania increase. Pouring fortli from 
this lake, the river disdains to flow through arid and sandy 
deserts, and for a distance of several days' journey conceals 
itself ; after which it bursts forth at another lake of greater 
magnitude in the country of the Masssesyli^ a people of 
Mauritania Csesariensis, and thence casts a glance around, as 
it were, upon the communities of men in its vicinity, giving 
proofs of its identity in the same peculiarities of the animals 
which it produces. It then buries itself once again in the 
sands of the desert, and remains concealed for a distance of 
twenty days' journey, till it has reached the confines of Ethio- 
pia. Here, when it has once more become sensible of the pre- 
sence of man, it again emerges, at the same source, in all pro- 
bability, to which writers have given the name of Niger, or 
Black. Affcer this, forming the boundary-line between Africa 
and Ethiopia, its banks, though not immediately peopled by 
man, are the resort of numbers of wild beasts and ani- 
mals of various kinds. Griving birth in its course to dense 
forests of trees, it travels through the middle of Ethiopia, 
under tbe name of Astapus, a word which signifies, in the 
language of the nations who dwell in those regions, " water 
issuing from the shades below." Proceeding onwards, it 
divides^ innumerable islands in its course, and some of them 
of such vast magnitude, that although its tide runs with the 
greatest rapidity, it is not less than five days in passing 
them. When making the circuit of Meroe, the most 
famous of these islands, the left branch of the river is called 
Astobores^, or, in other words, " an arm of the water that 
issues from the shades," while the right arm has the name 
of Astosapes'*, which adds to its original signification the 
^ A district which in reality was at least 1200 or 1500 miles distant 
from any part of the Nile, and probably near 3000 from its real source. 
2 " Spargit." It is doubtful whether this word means here " waters,'* 
or " divides." Probably however the latter is its meaning. 
3 This is the third or eastern branch of the river, now known as the 
Tacazze. It rises in the highlands of Abyssinia, in about 11° 40' north 
lat. and 39° 40' east long., and joins the main stream of the Nile, formed 
by the union of the Abiad and the Azrek, in 17° 45' north lat. and about 
34° 5' east long. ; the point of junction being the apex of the island of 
Meroe, here mentioned by Pliny. 
^ Possibly by this name he designates the Bahr-el-Abied, or White 
Biver, the main stream of the Nile, the sources of which have not been 
