was little less rapid than that of prussic acid, since the tenth part of a grain would prove mortal to a man in a few minutes, while a grain would cause instantaneous death. The price of an ounce of this deleterious drug, the nature of which is totally unknown, was one hundred pieces of gold; but it was sold to foreigners only, who, when they purchased it, were compelled to make oath that no use should be made of it in Nubia. A sum equal to the price of the article was paid to the sovereign, and to dispose of the smallest quantity without his knowledge was death, if discovered; but whether the motive to this severity was fiscal or moral is not stated. The Nubians were engaged in perpetual hostilities with their neighbours, their principal enemy being a certain Ethiopian nation, whose sovereign, according to Leo, was that Prester John so famous in that and the succeeding ages; a despicable and wretched race, speaking an unknown jargon, and subsisting upon the milk and flesh of camels, and such wild animals as their deserts produced. Leo, however, evidently saw but little of Nubia; for though by no means likely to have passed such things over without notice had they been known to him, he never once alludes to the ruins of Meloë, the temples and pyramids of Mount Barkal, or those enormous statues, obelisks, and other monuments which mark the track of ancient civilization down the course of the Nile, and present to the eye of the traveller one of the earliest cradles of our race.
From this country he proceeded to Egypt, and paused a moment on his journey to contemplate the ruins of Thebes, a city, the founding of which some of his countrymen attributed to the Greeks, others to the Romans. Some fourteen or fifteen hundred peasants were found creeping like pismires at the foot of the gigantic monuments of antiquity. They ate good dates, grapes, and rice, however, and the women, who were lovely and well-formed, rejoiced the streets
