[103]. Trav. in Nubia, p. 353.
[104]. Prichard, Researches &c. vol. II. p. 174.
[105]. Voyage à Meroë, II., p. 276.
[106]. Edinburgh Review, Vol. LX., p. 311.
[107]. Idem., p. 307. The antiquity of the name Nubia, is of some importance in this discussion. Heeren and others state that it first occurs in history during the epoch of the Ptolemies; but Rosellini has now discovered that it is at least as old as the age of Menepthah I., (B.C. 1600,) on whose monuments it is found.
Since the above note was written, Mr. Gliddon has obligingly furnished me with the following interesting memorandum: “The name Nubia, with its derivatives of Nouba and Noubatæ, may be readily traced to Noubnoub, a Nubian divinity in the hieroglyphical legends of Menepthah I. and Rameses II. and III., and may possibly be derived from the root noub, gold, from the proximity of Nubia to the Ethiopian gold countries. The word Berber, as applied to the people of Nubia, (now called Berabera in the plural, from Berberri, the singular,) is without question derived from the hieroglyphical name Barobaro, by which at least one tribe inhabiting Nubia was known to the Egyptians of the 18th dynasty.”
[108]. Clot Bey states the present black population of Egypt to be twenty thousand; and he adds that Negresses form the greater number of women in almost every harem. Aperçu Générale de l’Egypte, I., p. 329.
[109]. Sir G. Wilkinson observes that “no difficulty occurred to the Ishmaelites in the purchase of Joseph from his brethren, nor on his subsequent sale to Potiphar on arriving in Egypt.” Ancient Egyptians, I., p. 404.
[110]. A passage in Manetho establishes at the same time the antiquity and the power of eunuchs in Egypt; for he relates that king Ammenemes, of the twelfth dynasty, was slain by them. This event will date, by the received chronology, upwards of twenty-two hundred years B.C. Cory, Frag., p. 110. Eunuchs appear, also, to be figured on the monuments. Vide Rosellini, M. C. III., p. 133.
[111]. Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, II., p. 64.