above the confluence. But it is rare indeed to find a coincidence of
many ancient authorities in a question where numbers are concerned,
unless one author has borrowed from another, which is probably the case
in regard to the two just quoted.]

[p.xxi]It will hardly be contested, that the modern name of Merawe,
which is found attached to a town near the ruins of an ancient city,
discovered by Messrs. Waddington and Hanbury in the country of the
Sheygya, is sufficient to overthrow the strong evidence just stated. It
may rather be inferred, that the Greek Meroe was formed from a word
signifying "city" in the ancient AEthiopic language, which has continued
up to the present time, to be attached to the site of one of the chief
cities on the banks of the Nile,--thus resembling in its origin many
names of places in various countries, which from simple nouns expressive
in the original language of objects or their qualities, such as city,
mountain, river, sacred, white, blue, black, have been converted by
foreigners into proper names.

The ruins near Merawe seem to those of Napata, the chief town of the
country intermediate between Meroe and Egypt, and which was taken by the
praefect Petronius, in the reign of Augustus, when it was the capital of
Queen Candace;[Ptolem. l.4,c.7. Strabo, p.820. Plin. Hist.
Nat.l.6,c.29.] for Pliny, on the authority of the persons sent by Nero
to EXPLORE the river above Syene, states 524 Roman miles to have been
the interval between Syene and Napata, and 360 miles to have been that
between Napata and Meroe, which distances correspond more nearly than
could have been expected with the real distances between Assouan,
Merawe, and Shendy, taken along the general curve of the river, without
considering the windings in detail.[We must not, however, too
confidently pronounce on REAL distances until we possess a few more