CHAPTER II.
IN the preceding part
1 of this work we have spoken at
length of Ethiopia, so that its description may be said to be
included in that of Egypt.
In general, then, the extreme parts of the habitable world
adjacent to the intemperate region, which is not habitable by
reason either of heat or cold, must necessarily be defective
and inferior, in respect to physical advantages, to the temper-
ate region. This is evident from the mode of life of the inhabitants, and their want of what is requisite for the use and
subsistence of man. For the mode of life [of the Ethiopians]
is wretched; they are for the most part naked, and wander
from place to place with their flocks. Their flocks and herds
are small in size, whether sheep, goats, or oxen; the dogs
also, though fierce and quarrelsome, are small.
2 It was perhaps from the diminutive size of these people, that the story
of the Pygmies originated, whom no person, worthy of credit,
has asserted that he himself has seen.
[
2]
They live on millet and barley, from which also a drink
is prepared. They have no oil, but use butter and fat instead.
3 There are no fruits, except the produce of trees in
the royal gardens. Some feed even upon grass, the tender
twigs of trees, the lotus, or the roots of reeds. They live also
upon the flesh and blood of animals, milk, and cheese. They
reverence their kings as gods, who are for the most part shut
up in their palaces.
Their largest royal seat is the city of Meroë, of the same
name as the island. The shape of the island is said to be
that of a shield. Its size is perhaps exaggerated. Its length
is about 3000, and its breadth 1000 stadia. It is very mountainous, and contains great forests. The inhabitants are
nomades, who are partly hunters and partly husbandmen.
There are also mines of copper, iron, gold, and various kinds
of precious stones. It is surrounded on the side of Libya by
great hills of sand, and on that of Arabia by continuous precipices. In the higher parts on the south, it is bounded by
the confluent
4 streams of the rivers Astaboras,
5 Astapus,
6
and Astasobas. On the north is the continuous course of the
Nile to Egypt, with its windings, of which we have spoken
before.
The houses in the cities are formed by interweaving split
pieces of palm wood or of bricks.
7 They have fossil salt, as
in Arabia. Palm, the persea
8 (peach), ebony, and carob
trees are found in abundance. They hunt elephants, lions,
and panthers. There are also serpents, which encounter elephants, and there are many other kinds of wild animals, which
take refuge, from the hotter and parched districts, in watery
and marshy districts.
[
3]
Above Meroë is Psebo,
9 a large lake, containing a well-inhabited island. As the Libyans occupy the western bank
of the Nile, and the Ethiopians the country on the other side
of the river, they thus dispute by turns the possession of the
islands and the banks of the river, one party repulsing the
other, or yielding to the superiority of its opponent.
The Ethiopians use bows of wood four cubits long, and
hardened in the fire. The women also are armed, most of
whom wear in the upper lip a copper ring. They wear sheepskins, without wool; for the sheep have hair like goats. Some
go naked, or wear small skins or girdles of well-woven hair
round the loins.
They regard as God one being who is immortal, the cause
of all things; another who is mortal, a being without a name,
whose nature is not clearly understood.
In general they consider as gods benefactors and royal persons, some of whom are their kings, the common saviours and
guardians of all; others are private persons, esteemed as gods
by those who have individually received benefits from them.
Of those who inhabit the torrid region, some are even supposed not to acknowledge any god, and are said to abhor even
the sun, and to apply opprobrious names to him, when they
behold him rising, because he scorches and tortures them
with his heat; these people take refuge in the marshes.
The inhabitants of Meroë worship Hercules, Pan, and Isis,
besides some other barbaric deity.
10
Some tribes throw the dead into the river; others keep
them in the house, enclosed in hyalus (oriental alabaster ?).
Some bury them around the temples in coffins of baked clay.
They swear an oath by them, which is reverenced as more
sacred than all others.
Kings are appointed from among persons distinguished for
their personal beauty, or by their breeding of cattle, or for
their courage, or their riches.
In Meroë the priests anciently held the highest rank, and
sometimes sent orders even to the king, by a messenger, to put
an end to himself, when they appointed another king in his
place. At last one of their kings abolished this custom, by
going with an armed body to the temple where the golden
shrine is, and slaughtering all the priests.
The following custom exists among the Ethiopians. If a
king is mutilated in any part of the body, those who are
most attached to his person, as attendants, mutilate themselves
in the same manner, and even die with him. Hence the
king is guarded with the utmost care. This will suffice on
the subject of Ethiopia.
[
4]
To what has been said concerning Egypt, we must add
these peculiar products; for instance, the Egyptian bean, as it is
called, from which is obtained the ciborium,
11 and the papyrus,
for it is found here and in India only; the persea (peach)
grows here only, and in Ethiopia; it is a lofty tree, and its
fruit is large and sweet; the sycamine, which produces the
fruit called the sycomorus, or fig-mulberry, for it resembles
a fig, but its flavour is not esteemed. The corsium also
(the root of the Egyptian lotus) grows there, a condiment like
pepper, but a little larger.
There are in the Nile fish in great quantity and of different kinds, having a peculiar and indigenous character. The
best known are the oxyrynchus,
12 and the lepidotus,
13 the latus,
14
the alabes,
15 the coracinus,
16 the chœrus, the phagrorius, called
also the phagrus. Besides these are the silurus, the citharus,
17
the thrissa,
18 the cestreus,
19 the lychnus, the physa, the bous (or
ox), and large shell-fish which emit a sound like that of wailing
The animals peculiar to the country are the ichneumon
and the Egyptian asp, having some properties which those
in other places do not possess. There are two kinds, one a
span in length, whose bite is more suddenly mortal than that
of the other; the second is nearly an orguia
20 in size, according to Nicander. the author of the Theriaca.
Among the birds, are the ibis and the Egyptian hawk,
which, like the cat, is more tame than those elsewhere. The
nycticorax is here peculiar in its character; for with us it is
as large as an eagle, and its cry is harsh; but in Egypt it is
the size of a jay, and has a different note. The tamest animal, however, is the ibis; it resembles a stork in shape and
size. There are two kinds, which differ in colour; one is
like a stork, the other is entirely black. Every street in
Alexandreia is full of them. In some respects they are useful; in others troublesome. They are useful, because they
pick up all sorts of small animals and the offal thrown out
of the butchers' and cooks' shops. They are troublesome,
because they devour everything, are dirty, and with difficulty
prevented from polluting in every way what is clean and
what is not given to them.
[
5]
Herodotus
21 truly relates of the Egyptians, that it is a
practice peculiar to them to knead clay with their hands,
and the dough for making bread with their feet. Caces is a
peculiar kind of bread which restrains fluxes. Kiki (the
castor-oil bean) is a kind of fruit sowed in furrows. An oil
is expressed from it which is used for lamps almost generally
throughout the country, but for anointing the body only by
the poorer sort of people and labourers, both men and women.
The coccina are Egyptian textures made of some plant,
22
woven like those made of rushes, or the palm-tree.
Barley beet is a preparation peculiar to the Egyptians.
It is common among many tribes, but the mode of preparing
it differs in each.
This, however, of all their usages is most to be admired,
that they bring up all children that are born. They circumcise the males, and spay the females, as is the custom also
among the Jews, who are of Egyptian origin, as I said when
I was treating of them.
23
According to Aristobulus, no fishes ascend the Nile from
the sea, except the cestreus, the thrissa, and dolphins, on account of the crocodiles; the dolphin, because it can get the
better of the crocodile; the cestreus, because it is accompanied
by the chœri along the bank, in consequence of some physical
affinity subsisting between them. The crocodiles abstain
from doing any hurt to the chœri, because they are of a
round shape, and have spines on their heads, which are dangerous to them.. The cestreus runs up the river in spring,
when in spawn; and descends a little before the setting
of the pleiad, in great numbers, when about to cast it, at which
time they are taken in shoals, by falling into inclosures (made
for catching them). Such also, we may conjecture, is the
reason why the thrissa is found there.
So much then on the subject of Egypt.
