capital city, which seems to have stood near the modern town of Shendi, and are also called the Pyramids of As-sur. The general arrangement of the largest group, which is in the plain, about 1 miles from the river, is illustrated by the following plan; nearly all are in ruins, for the stonecasings have been removed by generations of natives. At no great distance from these pyramids are the ruins of a temple and the remains of an artificial depression, which seems to mark the site of the sacred lake of the temple. The second and third group of Pyramids at Meroë, The other two groups of pyramids are situated further to the east, and are built on low hills, the smaller group lying to the south-east of the larger; and some of their pyramids are quite in ruins. The most interesting group is that which is built on a comparatively high hill, and which at the beginning of the XIXth century was in a good state of preservation, as the plates which illustrate Cailliaud's Voyage prove. The 29 pyramids of this group vary in size at the base from 20 feet to 63 feet. In front of each pyramid was a chapel which consisted of one or more chambers, the walls of which were decorated with reliefs, in which kings and queens were depicted worshipping the local gods and making offerings to them. There is little doubt that the sites of these groups of pyramids were used as burial grounds from an extremely early period, but the inscriptions of the pyramids now standing there show that they belong to a period which lies between about B.C. 400 and A.D. 250. Both reliefs and inscriptions prove that the Nubians, or Ethiopians as they are often called, were borrowers from, and not the originators of, the Egyptian civilization, with its gods and religion, and system of writing, as some, following Diodorus, have thought. The royal names found in some of the chapels are those of the builders of the great temples at Nâga, and others are those which are known from buildings at Dakkeh and Gebel Barkal. In them also are inscriptions in the character called Meroïtic, which, in some respects, resembles the Demotic, and Lepsius had no doubt that they were contemporaneous. It is not at present possible to arrange the royal names of the Nubian or Ethiopian kings in chronological order, especially as many of them seem to be peculiar to certain parts of the old kingdom of Meroë, and it is possible that many of their owners were contemporary. It is, however, evident that when this kingdom was in its most flourishing state, the rule of its kings extended from the Blue Nile to Aswân. In 1834 an Italian doctor called Ferlini selected one of the largest pyramids on the crest of the hill at Bakrawîyeh (i.e., the one marked F in Cailliaud's plan, and the most westerly of the group), and began to pull it down. In the course of the work an entrance to a chamber was accidentally discovered, wherein were found a dead body and a large quantity of jewellery, boxes, etc., of a most interesting character.* This treasure was not His account of the discovery is so interesting, that an extract from the French version of it is here given : "Monté au sommet de la pyramide, avec quatre ouvriers, pour mettre buried, as one would expect, in a chamber below the surface of the ground, but in a small chamber within the masonry of the pyramid. One good result attended this lucky "find," for it became certain that the period when the jewellery was placed in the pyramid was Roman, and the inscriptions showed that the queen for whom the pyramid was built was the great queen who is depicted on the walls of the ruins at Nâga with rich decorations and pointed nails almost an inch long. The ill result that followed the discovery was the destruction of several pyramids by treasure seekers, and Lepsius relates that when he was there Osman Bey, who was leading back his army of 5,000 men from Taka, offered him the help of his battalions to pull down all the pyramids, in order to find treasure as Ferlini had done. The few natives found by the writer at Bakrawîyeh would hardly approach the pyramids by day, la main à l'ouvrage, je reconnus au premier coup-d'œil que la démolition pouvait se faire fort facilement, vu que le monument tombait déjà de vétusté ; les premières pierres enlevées, je relevais mes .ouvriers. Pendant qu'on jetait par terre les pierres des gradins, ne pouvant plus résister à l'ardeur du soleil, dont les brûlans rayons -donnaient jusq'à 48° de Réaumur, [i.e., 60° Centigrade, and 140° Fahrenheit], j'allai me reposer avec M. Stefani à l'ombre d'une pyramide voisine. Tout-à-coup je fus appelé par mon fidèle domestique. J'accourus avec mon ami au haut du monument . . . et je sentis déjà mon cœur s'ouvrir à la douce espérance.. Je vois mon domestique couché sur son ventre, sur l'emplacement qu'il avait pratiqué, et cherchant à couvrir de son corps l'ouverture qui venait d'être découverte. Les noirs, poussés par la cupidité, voulaient à toute force chasser mon domestique et plonger leurs mains avides dans le fond de l'ouverture . . . Nous fîmes bonne contenance, et les armes à la main, nous les forçâmes de descendre; nous appellâmes d'autres domestiques de confiance, et nous fîmes continuer la fouille en notre présence. L'ouverture nous laissait entrevoir un vide qui contenait des objets que nous ne pouvions distinguer. Ce vide, ou cellule, était formé de grandes pierres grossièrement assemblées. Nous fimes enlever les pierres les plus larges qui couvraient le plan supérieur, et ... far less in the evening or by night, and the shêkh Muḥammad Amîn, who had been in the employ of General Gordon, declared that it was "not nice" to intrude upon the "spirits of the kings who were taking their rest in the mountain." Seen from the river at sunset, the western sides of the pyramids appear to be of a ruddy crimson colour. Shendi, on the east bank of the river, 95 miles from the Atbara, was once a large town, containing several thousands of inhabitants, and possessed a considerable trade with the northern and southern provinces on the east bank of the Nile. In the year 1820 Muḥammad 'Ali sent his son Ismâ 'îl Pâsha with 5,000 soldiers to conquer Sennaar, and another force of about the same strength to conquer Kordofân. Ismâ'îl was successful in his mission, but the year following he was invited by Nimr the Nubian king to a banquet in his palace at Shendi, and during the nous reconnûmes une cellule ayant la forme d'un carré long et composée de grosses pierres superposées qui formaient les quartre murs latéraux correspondant aux gradins de la pyramide. Cette cellule avait quatre pieds de hauteur sur six ou sept de longueur. La première chose qui frappa nos regards ce fut un grande corps couvert d'un tissu en coton d'une éclatante blancheur qui, à peine touché, tomba en poussiére. C'était une espèce de table ou autel, soutenue par quatre pieds cylindriques et entourée d'une balustrade de barreaux en bois, grands et petits alternativement placés. Ces barreaux étaient sculptés et représentaient des figures symboliques. C'est sous cette table que se trouva le vase en bronze . qui contenait les objets précieux enveloppés dans du linge semblable à celui dont je viens de parler. Près du vase et sur le plan de la cellule, étaient symétriquement disposés, au moyen de fils, des colliers, des pâtes en verre, des pierres de couleur, etc. Il y avait aussi quelques talismans, de petites idoles, un étui cylindrique en métal, de petites boîtes travaillées au tour remplies d'une matière pulvérisée dont je donne plus loin l'analyse, une scie, un ciseau, et plusieurs autres objets dont j'ai donné la description dans mon catalogue."-J. Ferlini, Relation Historique des fouilles opérées dans la Nubie; Rome, 1838. course of the entertainment the palace was set on fire and the Egyptian prince was burned to death. Muḥammad Bey at once marched to Shendi, and having perpetrated awful cruelties upon nearly all its inhabitants, destroyed houses and gardens and property of every kind. Shendi was a Dervish stronghold for some years, but it was re-occupied by the Egyptian troops on March 26th, 1898. Matammah, on the west bank of the Nile, 98 miles from the Atbara, had, in 1885, about 3,000 inhabitants, two or more mosques, and a market twice a week. In 1897 the Gaalîn Arabs in and about the town revolted against the Khalifa's authority, and having fortified the place they awaited the result. Mahmûd, by the Khalifa's orders, attacked it on July 1st, and after a three days' fight, all their ammunition being expended, the Gaalîn were compelled to submit, for Maḥmûd had surrounded the town with his troops. The victors promptly slew 2,000 men, and women and children were massacred mercilessly; the prisoners were drawn up in a line and treated thus: the first was beheaded, the second lost a right hand, the third his feet, and so on until every man had been mutilated. The Gaalîn chief, 'Abd-Allah wad Sûd, was walled up at Omdurmân in such a position that he could neither stand nor sit, and was thus left to die of hunger and thirst (Royle, op. cit., p. 521). General Sir A. Hunter bombarded the town on October 16, 17, and November 3, 1897, and it was evacuated by Mahmûd in March, 1898. About 20 miles south of Shendi, on the east bank, is the entrance to the Wâdî Ben-Nâga, and near it is a little village called Ben-Nâga; three miles down the river are ins of a small ancient Nubian temple, which, according ns, measured about 150 feet in length; it contained feet square. The principal remains are ich are figures of Bes in relief. Travelling direction, and passing Gebel Buerib, about ང |