226 Dr Beke on the Sources of the Nile 



ruptions of the original text of tlie Tables. But as, in the 

 present remarks, it is not intended to enter upon a critical 

 examination of the various details, these errors (admitting 

 their existence) are immaterial. This map is intro- 

 duced here in order that it may be compared, in the most 

 general way, with one constructed with the materials pos- 

 sessed by us at the present day (PI. IV., fig. 2.) ; and on com- 

 paring these two maps, we are at once struck with the great 

 extension, in a southerly direction, which Ptolemy has given 

 to the courses of the Nile and its two great tributary streams, 

 the Astaboras and Astapus, as likewise to the eastern coast 

 of Africa, as far as it was then known. 



For the correction of this fundamental error our means are 

 two. The one is the positive knowledge respecting the 

 courses of the rivers themselves, which has been acquired 

 from the recent Egyptian expeditions up the Nile, and from 

 the explorations of travellers in Abessinia. The other is the 

 like positive information derived from the surveys made of 

 the east coast of Africa, and from the information respecting 

 the interior of the continent collected at various points along 

 the coast. 



From the former of these sources of information we are 

 enabled to lay down, with almost absolute accuracy, the 

 course of the Astaboras, now known as the Atbara or Tdk- 

 kazie, and that of the Astapus, Blue River, or Ab^i. From 

 the same source we further learn that in about 9° 20' N. lat. 

 the main stream of the Nile divides into three arms ; namely, 

 1*/, The Bahr el Abyad, or White River, which has been 

 ascended as far as 4" 42' 42" N. lat. ;* 2dli/, The Sobat, Telfi, 

 or River of Habesh, which falls into the central stream from 

 the east, and is considered to contribute to the Nile nearly a 

 moiety of its waters ;t and, ^dly, The Bahr el Ghazal or 

 Keilah, which joins the Nile from the west, and is described 

 as being a magnificent stream, with a tolerably rapid current. % 



* Bulletin de la Societe de Geographie de Paris, 2d Ser., vol. xviii., p. 367, et 

 seq. ; xix., p. 89, et seq., p. 445 ; AVerne, in Hitter's Blick in das Nil-Quellland, 

 p. 42, et seq. 



t Ibid. ; and see Journ. Roy. Geogr. Soc, vol. xvii., p. 69. 



J Bulletin, 3d Ser., vol. iv., p. 160, et seq. 



