MEMOIR OF BRUCE. 73 



governor, and would pay for every thing without 

 exacting taxes or military service. 



It is scarcely necessary to inform the intelligent 

 reader, that Bruce's discovery, after all, left the 

 great geographical problem (the real sources of the 

 Nile), which had occupied the attention of so many 

 ages, and baffled the efforts of Cambyses, Alexander, 

 and Ptolemy, still unresolved. It is well known, 

 that in the kingdom of Nubia, about sixteen degrees 

 north of the equator, the great river of Egypt splits 

 into two main branches, called the Bahr el Azrek 

 or Blue River, flowing from the eastward, and the 

 Bahr el Abiad or White River, which takes a 

 western course. These names they derive from the 

 respective colour of their waters, a fact which shows 

 that they flow through tracts of country differing 

 entirely in the qualities of their soil. At their 

 junction, the White River is by far the larger of 

 the two; and for more than a league after their 

 meeting, the waters on each side retain their peculiar 

 colour. There can be no doubt, that this is the 

 main artery of the Egyptian Nile. This, Bruce him- 

 self, much to his honour, admits ; and conjectures, 

 from the larger volume of water, that it must pro- 

 ceed from a more remote source ; so remote, that it 

 yet remains undiscovered, except in the dark float- 

 ing clouds of the tropics, which give back in perio- 

 dical rains those copious exhalations which they 

 draw from the great basin of the Mediterranean. 



But though this fact is allowed, it scarcely plucks 

 a single berry from the laurels of Bruce. The 



