If there were any pyramids near Saba, I should believe it to be the ancient Meroe, because Josephus represents that the ancient name of Meroe was "Saba." "Nam Saba urbs eadem fuisse perhibetur quae a Cambyse Meroe in uxoris honorem dicta est:" quoted from Eichom's ed. of Sim. Heb. Lex. artic. Sameh Bet Alef It was impossible for me to ask of the Pasha liberty to accompany the gentlemen abovementioned, as a battle was expected in a few days between us and the king of Sennaar, from which I would not have been absent on any consideration.] [Footnote 49: The people of Dongola, Shageia, Berber, Shendi, and Sennaar, do not use mills to make meal. They reduce grain to meal by rubbing it a handful at a time between two stones--one fixed in the ground, and one held by the hands. By long and tedious friction, the grain is reduced to powder. This labor is performed by the women, as is almost all the drudgery of the people of the Upper Nile.] [Footnote 50: On my return from Sennaar, I descended by the river as far as Berber. On the way I did see some few water-wheels, which, however, were employed merely to water the patches of ground devoted to raising vegetables.] [Footnote 51: The Pasha had invited the Malek of Shendi and the Malek of Halfya to accompany him to Sennaar. The Malek of Halfya excused himself on account of his age and infirmities, but sent his eldest son along with the Pasha. By this stroke of policy the Pasha made the tranquility of the powerful provinces of Shendi and Halfya certain; and the advance of his army without risk from an insurrection in his rear; as the people of those provinces would hardly dare to make any hostile movement while the chief of one province and the heir of the Malek of the other were in our camp. Nymmer, the Malek of Shendi, is a grave and venerable man of about 65 years of age, very dignified in his deportment, and highly respectable for his morals. The Malek of Halfya I have not seen.] [Footnote 52: The present Sultan of Sennaar is a young man of about 26 years of age; he is black, his mother having been a Egress. He was taken out of prison, where he had been confined for eighteen years by his predecessor, who was massacred by the party who placed him upon the throne. This revolution had taken place not very long before our march to Sennaar. His name is Bady.] [Footnote 53: The natives told me that this palace had been built eighteen years ago, by the late good Sultan that they had had, who had planted before it rows of trees, which had been destroyed when the palace was ruined, as I understood them, in the wars between the different competitors for the throne during the last eighteen years.]