I apprehend the reason why, without forsaking their ancient domiciles in the mountains, they chose this situation for another city, Meroë, was owing to an imperfection they had discovered (both in Sirè and in their caves below it) to result from their climate. They were within the tropical rains; and, consequently, were impeded and interrupted in the necessary observations of the heavenly bodies, and the progress of astronomy which they so warmly cultivated. They must have seen, likewise, a necessity of building Meroë farther from them than perhaps they wished, for the same reason they built Axum in the high country of Abyssinia in order to avoid the fly (a phænomenon of which I shall afterwards speak) which pursued them everywhere within the limits of the rains, and which must have given an absolute law in those first times to the regulations of the Cushite settlements. They therefore went the length of lat. 16°, where I saw the ruins supposed to be those of Meroë[222], and caves in the mountains immediately above that situation, which I cannot doubt were the temporary habitation of the builders of that first seminary of learning. It is probable that, immediately upon their success at Meroë, they lost no time in stretching on to Thebes. We know that it was a colony of Ethiopians, and probably from Meroë, but whether directly, or not, we are not certain. A very short time might have passed between the two establishments, for we find above Thebes, as there are above Meroë, a vast number of caves, which the colony made provisionally, upon its first arrival, and which are very near the top of the mountain, all inhabited to this day. Hence we may infer, that their ancient apprehensions of a deluge had not left them whilst, they saw the whole land of Egypt could be overflowed every year without rain falling upon it; that they did not absolutely, as yet, trust to the liability of towns like those of Sirè and Meroë, placed upon columns or stones, one laid upon the other, or otherwise, that they found their excavations in the mountains were finished with less trouble, and more comfortable when complete, than the houses that were built. It was not long before they assumed a greater degree of courage. CHAP. II. _Saba and the South of Africa peopled--Shepherds, their particular Employment and Circumstances--Abyssinia occupied by seven stranger Nations--Specimens of their several Languages--Conjectures concerning them._