South of Aswân and Philse begins Nubia. The Nubian language, which is quite different from Arabic, is spoken by everybody on the island of Elephantine, and its various dialects are used as far south as Dongola, where Arabic again is generally spoken till we reach the land of the negroes, south of Khartum. In Ptolemaic and Roman days the Nubians were a powerful people, and the whole of Nubia and the modern North Sudan formed an independent kingdom, ruled by queens who bore the title or name of Candace. It was the eunuch of a Candace who was converted to Christianity as he was returning from a mission to Jerusalem to salute Jehovah. “Go and join thyself unto his chariot” was the command to Philip, and when the Ethiopian had heard the gospel from his lips he went on his way rejoicing. The capital of this Candace was at Meroë, the modern Bagarawiya, near Shendi. Here, and at Naga not far off, are the remains of the temples of the Can-daces, great buildings of semi-barbaric Egyptian style. For the civilization of the Nubians, such as it was, was of Egyptian origin. Ever since Egyptian rule had been extended southwards to Jebel Barkal, beyond Dongola, in the time of Amenhetep II, Egyptian culture had influenced the Nubians. Amenhetep III built a temple to Amen at Napatà, the capital of Nubia, which lay under the shadow of Mount Barkal; Akhunaten erected a sanctuary of the Sun-Disk there; and Ramses II also built there. [Illustration: 452.jpg THE ROCK OF KONOSSO IN JANUARY, 1902, BEFORE THE BUILDING OF THE DAM AND FORMATION OF THE RESERVOIR.] The place in fact was a sort of appanage of the priests of Amen at Thebes, and when the last priest-king evacuated Thebes, leaving it to the Bubastites of the XXIId Dynasty, it was to distant Napata that he retired. Here a priestly dynasty continued to reign until, two centuries later, the troubles and misfortunes of Egypt seemed to afford an opportunity for the reassertion of the exiled Theban power. Piankhi Mera-men returned to Egypt in triumph as its rightful sovereign, but his successors, Shabak, Shabatak, and Tirha-kah, had to contend constantly with the Assyrians. Finally ITrdamaneh, Tirhakah’s successor, returned to Nubia, leaving Egypt, in the decadence of the Assyrian might, free to lead a quiet existence under Psametik I and the succeeding monarchs of the XXVIth Dynasty. When Cambyses conquered Egypt he aspired to conquer Nubia also, but his army was routed and destroyed by the Napatan king, who tells us in an inscription how he defeated “the man Kambasauden,” who had attacked him. At Napata the Nubian monarchs, one of the greatest of whom in Ptolemaic times was Ergam-enes, a contemporary of Ptolemy Philopator, continued to reign. But the first Roman governor of Egypt, Ælius Gallus, destroyed Napata, and the Nubians removed their capital to Meroë, where the Candaces reigned.