292 GEOGRAPHY FROM AUGUSTUS TO TRAJAN, [CH, XIII,
as Meroe by way of Syene and Napata, which city has been
already noticed in connexion with the campaign of Petronius
against Candace, Seneca, whose information (so he tells us) was
obtained directly from two centurions employed on the mission,
states that they were furnished with an escort by the king of
Aethiopia, and with introductions to the neighbouring chiefs, and
thus advanced far into the interior, The furthest
J^nMarshy point in the Nile valley that was attained they
described as occupied by vast marshes, where the
water was clogged with herbage so muddy and tangled as only
to afford a passage for boats of the smallest size, In these we
recognise the extensive swampy region of the White Nile, which
is first met with above the junction of that river with the Sobat,
about 400 miles to the southward of Khartoum1. The discovery,
however, was not entirely new, for, little as this district was known
in antiquity, yet Aristotle had heard of it, since he mentions it in
connexion with the race of Pygmies2,
1 Sen, Nat. Quaest. 6.8,3, 4; Ego quidem centuriones duos quos Nero
Caesar, ut aliarum virtutum ita veritatis in primis amantissimus, ad investigan-
dum caput Nili miserat audivi narrantes longum illos iter peregisse, cum a rege
Aethiopiae instruct! auxilio commendatique proximis regibus penetrassent ad
ulteriora. 'Equidem,' aiebant, 'pervenimus ad immensas paludes, quarum
exitum nee incolae noverant nee sperare quisquam potcst, ita inplicatae aquis
herbae sunt et aquae neque pediti eluctabiles nee navigio, quod nisi parvum et
unius capax limosa et obsita palus non ferat. Ibi,' inquit, * vidimus duas
petras, ex quibus ingens vis fluminis excidebat,' Cp, Pliny, 6,184—6,
8«/, $upra} p. 29,