TRAVELS OF HOSKINS " those religious colonies issued forth, which carried civilization, " arts, and religion from Ethiopia to the Delta." Cailliaud's view Hoskins found to be wholly untenable, and that of Heeren he thought most improbable, but, curiously enough, he was ready to explain the paucity of remains of sacred edifices in Ethiopia by assuming that, at the time when " the religion of the Gospel was " widely spread in this part of Africa, some Christian king of *' Ethiopia, zealous, and desirous of obliging his subjects to embrace '' the true religion, and aware that, if his faith prevailed at all, it *' must prevail, to use the language of Paley, by the overthrow of *' every statue, altar and temple of the world," utterly destroyed not only the Ammonium, but also many of the other temples. He was prepared also to regard the ruins of Masawwarat as the remains of a chiiteau de chasse of the king, or palace in which he passed the rainy season, which might then, as now, be unhealthy near the Nile. The evidences of pomp and ceremonial in the buildings were, however, too few to permit him to maintain this view seriously, and he therefore thought it more reasonable to hold that they formed a hospital to which invalids, particularly those suffering from malaria, were sent during the rainy season. Hoskins' views as to the date of the ruins are tolerably correct, for in them he saw the ' last architectural efforts of a people whose greatness was passed *'away, their taste corrupted, and all the lights of knowledge and *' civilization just extinguished. The elegant pyramids of Merce 'differ as widely in taste and execution from the immensely *' extensive but ill-planned ruins of Wadi al-Awaiteb, as the best ''sculpture at Thebes, during the age of Rameses H., differs from ''the corrupted style under the Ptolemies and Caesars."

From Masawwarat Hoskins returned to the Nile, a journey which he accomplished in six hours, and on the following morning lie marched to Abu Naga (Masawwarat al-Kirbikan), where he found the remains of two pillars, each ornamented with sculptured reliefs of the God Bes, who appears to have been introduced into Egypt from some part of the Sudan in very early times. At this place the Arabs of course told Hoskins of the existence of some fine ruins called " Masawwarat an-Nagaa," which lay at about eight hours' * Mote correctly Ban Nagaa, or Ba Nagaa ; the site lies near the river, and the small temples stood here.

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