SITE OF THE ANCIENT CITF. 235 eastern base, I walked to another group of pyramids, which lay a mile and a half to the south-west, towards the Nile. As we approached them, a herd of beautiful gray gazelles started from among the stones and bounded away into the Desert.

" These were the tents of the poor people," said the rais, pointing to the pyramids : " the Frank found no golden pigeons here." They were, in fact, smaller and more dilapidated than the others. Some had plain burial chambers attached to their eastern sides, but the sculptures were few and insignificant. There were sixteen in all, more or less ruined. Scattering mounds, abounding with fragments of bricks and building-stones, extended from these ruins nearly to the river's bank, a distance of more than two miles; and the foundations of many other pyramids might be seen among them. The total number of pyramids in a partial state of preservation — some being nearly perfect, while a few retained only two or three of the lower courses — which I counted on the site of Meroe, was forty-two. Besides these, I noticed the traces of forty or fifty others, which had been wholly demolished. The entire number, however, of which Meroe could boast, in its prime, was one hundred and ninety-six. The mounds near the river, which cover an extent of between one and two miles, point out the site of the city, the capital of the old Hierarchy of Meroe, and the pyramids are no doubt the tombs of its kings and priests. It is rather singular that the city has been so completely destroyed, as the principal spoilers of Egypt, the Persians, never penetrated into Ethiopia, and there is no evidence of the stones having been used to any extent by the Arabs, as building materials.

The examination of Meroe has solved the doubtful ques-