in Ancient Geography, an island of Ethiopia beyond Egypt, in the Nile; with a cognominal town, the metropolis of the Ethiopians.

The Jesuits have endeavoured to prove, that the province of Gojam in Abyssinia is the Meroe of the ancients; but this is strongly contested by Mr Bruce, who is of opinion, that it must be looked for somewhere between the source of the Nile and its union with the Atbara. The latter, he thinks, is very plainly the Aflaboras of the ancients; and Pliny says, that this stream encloses the left side of Meroe as the Nile does the right, in which case we must suppose him looking southward from Alexandria, otherwise the words would not apply.

We are told by Diodorus Siculus, that Meroe had its name from a sister of Cambyses king of Persia, who died there in the expedition undertaken by that prince against the Ethiopians. His army perished with hunger and thirst in the deserts beyond Meroe, which could not have happened if they had reached Gojam, the latter being one of the most plentiful countries in the world. A further proof that Gojam cannot be the ancient Meroe is, that the latter was enclosed between the rivers Nile and Aflaboras, while Gojam is almost entirely surrounded by the Nile. If the ancients were acquainted with Gojam, they must also have been acquainted with the fountains of the Nile, which we certainly know they were not. Pliny says that Meroe, the most considerable of all the islands of the Nile, was called Aflaboras, from the name of its left channel, which cannot be supposed any other than the junction of the Nile and Atbara. He informs us moreover, that the sun was vertical twice in the year, viz. when proceeding northward he entered the 18th degree of Taurus, and when returning he came to the 14th degree of Leo; but this could never be the case with Gojam, which lies in about 10 degrees north latitude.

Again, the poet Lucan describes Meroe by two circumstances which cannot apply to any other than the peninsula of Atbara. One is, that the inhabitants were black; which was the case with the Gymnosophists and first inhabitants, and which has been the case with all the rest down to the Saracen conquest: but the inhabitants of Gojam, as well as the other Abyssinians, are fair, at least greatly different in complexion from the blacks; they are also long-haired, and nobody imagined that they ever had philosophers or science among them, which was eminently the case with the ancient inhabitants of Meroe. The other circumstance is, that the ebony tree grew in the island of Meroe, which at this day grows plentifully in the peninsula of Atbara, and part of the province of Kuara, but not in Gojam, where the tree could not subsist on account of the violent rains which take place during fix months of the year. Mr Bruce mentions another circumstance quoted from the poet Lucan, which likewise tends to prove the identity of Meroe and Atbara; viz. that though there are many trees in it, they afford no shade. This our traveller found by experience, when returning from Abyssinia through Atbara. "The country (says he) is flat, and has very little water. The forests, though thick, afforded no sort of shade, the hunters for the sake of their sport, and the Arabs for destroying the flies, having set fire to all the dry grass and thubs; which passing with great rapidity in the direction of the wind from east to west, though it had not time to destroy the trees, did yet wither, and occasion every leaf that was upon them to fall, unless in those spaces where villages had been, and where water was. In such spots a number of large spreading trees remained full of foliage; which, from their great height and being cleared of underwood, continued in full verdure, loaded with large, projecting, and exuberant branches. But even here the pleasure that their shade afforded was very temporary, so as to allow us no time for enjoyment. The sun so near the zenith, changed his azimuth so rapidly, that every few minutes I was obliged to change the carpet on which I lay, round the trunk of the tree to which I had fled for shelter; and though I lay down to sleep perfectly screened by the trunk or branches, I was presently awakened by the violent rays of a scorching sun, the shade having passed beyond me. In all other places, though we had travelled constantly in a forest, we never met with a tree that could shade us for a moment, the fire having deprived them of all their leaves." The heat of Atbara is excessive, the thermometer having been observed at \(119\frac{1}{2}\): two of Mr Bruce's company died of thirst, or at least of the consequences of drinking after extreme thirst. The inhabitants live in the greatest misery, and are continually in danger from the neighbouring Arabs, who, by destroying and burning their corn, are able to reduce them to a starving condition. Notwithstanding all their disadvantages, however, they have a manufacture of coarse cotton towels, of a size just sufficient to go round the waist, which pass current as money throughout the whole country.