232 Dr Beke on the Sources of the Nile 



miles, which is apparently the utmost distance of the edge of 

 the table-land from the coast, the position of the source of 

 the Nile will fall in about 2° N. lat. and 34° E. long. ; that is 

 to say, in the very spot which has already been attributed 

 to the northern, and also to the eastern limits of the country 

 of Mono-Moezi. 



The result thus arrived at is strikingly in accordance with 

 the following statement of the Arabian geographer, Ibn el 

 "Wardi, who flourished in the fourteenth century of our era. 

 He says,* " The land of the Zindj [i.e., Zindjibar or Zangebar] 

 lies opposite to that of Sind [India] ; between the two inter- 

 venes the breadth of the sea of Persia [the Indian ocean]. 



The inhabitants are the blackest of the negro race 



Their habitations extend from the extremity of the gulf to 

 the low land of gold (Sofalat-el-Dahab). . . The Nile is 

 divided above their country at the mountain of Muksim. Most 

 of the natives sharpen their teeth, and polish them to a 

 point. They traffic in elephants' teeth, panthers' skins, and 

 silk \X] They have islands in the sea, from which they col- 

 lect cowries to adorn their persons, and they use them in 

 traffic with one another at an established rate. Adjoining 

 to these lies the land of the Dum-a-Dum. It is situate on the 

 Nile, bordering on the Zindj. . . . In their country the river 

 divides, one branch going towards Egypt, and the other to the 

 country of the Zindj P 



Mr Salt, who has cited the above statement of Ibn el 

 Wardi, says,t in commenting on the last sentence of it, " By 

 this, I conceive, is meant the Nil I'Mugdesso (or river of Ma- 

 gadasho), which takes its rise fi^om the same chain of moun- 

 tains as the Abiad or Nile of Egypt ;'' and he supposes, fur- 

 ther,:}: that the " extremity of the gulf," mentioned in the 

 earlier portion of the extract, is Cape Gardafui. But this 

 opinion cannot well be maintained, inasmuch as the state- 

 ment of the Arabian geographer relates to the coast of Zindj 

 or Zangebar, skirting what Mr Salt, in another portion of 



* Kkeridat el 'Adjatjib, cited in Salt's Voyage to Abyssinia, pp. 56, 57. 

 t Voyage to Abyssinia, p. 57, note. 

 X Ibid., p. 56. 



