The Expedition Of The Pasha Of Egypt Has Already Produced Some Important
Additions To African Geography.
By permission of Mr. Waddington, the
Editor has corrected, from that gentleman's delineation, the parts of
the Nile above
Mahass, for the second [p.xix] edition of Burckhardt's
Nubia, and from the information transmitted to England by Mr. Salt, he
has been enabled to insert in the same map, the position of the ruins of
an ancient city situated about 20 miles to the north-eastward of Shendy.
These ruins had already been partially seen by Bruce and Burckhardt,
[Burckhardt passed through the vestiges of what seems to have been a
dependency of this city on the Nile, at seven hours to the north of
Shendy, and two hours to the south of Djebail; the latter name, which is
applied by Burckhardt to a large village on a range of hills, is
evidently the same as the Mount Gibbainy, where Bruce observed the same
ruins, which have now been more completely explored by M. Cailliaud. See
Travels in Nubia, p.275. Bruce's Travels, Vol. iv. p.538, 4to.] and
there can be little doubt that Bruce was right in supposing them to be
the remains of Meroe, the capital of the great peninsula of the same
name, of which the general geography appears to have been known with
considerable accuracy to men of science in the Augustan age, although it
had not been visited by any of the writers whose works have reached us.
For, assuming [To illustrate the following observations, as well as some
of the preceding, a small drawing of the course of the Nile is inserted
in the margin of the map of Syria which accompanies the present volume.]
these ruins to mark the site of the city Meroe, and that the latitude
and longitude of Shendy have been accurately determined by Bruce, whose
instruments were good, and whose competency to the task of observation
is undoubted, it will be found that Ptolemy is very nearly right in
ascribing the latitude of 16.26 to the city Meroe.[Ptolem. l.4,c.8.]
Pliny [Plin. Hist. Nat. l.2,c.73.] is equally correct in stating that
the two points of the ecliptic, in which the sun is in the zenith at
Meroe, are the 18th degree of Taurus, and the 14th degree of Leo. The
5000 stades which Strabo[Strabo, p. 113.] and Pliny [Plin. ibid.] We
learn from another passage in Pliny, (l.6,c.29,) that the persons sent by
Nero to explore the Nile, measured 884 miles, "by the river", from Syene
to Meroe.] assert to be the distance between Meroe and Syene is correct,
at a rate of between 11 and 12 [p.xx]stades to the geographical mile; if
the line be taken in direct distance, as evidently appears to have been
the intention of Strabo, by his thrice stating (upon the authority of
Eratosthenes,) that the distance from Meroe to Alexandria was 10,000
stades.[Eratosth.
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