THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 3 



fecure me from the melancholy cataftrophes that had ter- 

 minated thefe hitherto-unfuccefsful attempts. 



„ On the 1 6th, at dawn of day, I faw a high hill, which,from 

 its particular form, defcribed by Strabo * I took for Mount 

 Olympus f. Soon after, the reft of the ifland, which feemcd 

 low, appeared in view. We fcarce faw Lernica till we an- 

 chored before it. It is built of white clay, of the fame co- 

 lour as the ground, precifely as is the cafe with Damafcus, 

 fo that you cannot, till clofe to it, diftinguiih the houfes from 

 the earth they Hand upon. 



It is very remarkable that Cyprus was fo long undifco- 

 veredj; mips had been ufed in the Mediterranean 1700 years 

 before Chrift ; yet, though only a day's failing from the con- 

 tinent of Afia on the north and eaft, and little more from that 

 of Africa on the fouth, it was not known at the building of 

 Tyre, a little before the Trojan war, that is 500 years after 

 mips had been paffing to and fro in the feas around it. 



It was,at its difcoyery, thick covered with wood ; and what 

 leads me to believe it was not well known, even fo late as the 

 building of Solomon's Temple, is, that we do not find that 

 Hiram king of Tyre, juft in its neighbourhood, ever had re- 

 course to it for wood, though furely the carriage would 

 have been eafier than to have brought it down from the 

 top of Mount Libanus. 



A 2 That 



• Strabo, ft. xiv, p. 78* f 'It i s called Mamilhc, t Newton's Chronol. p. , Bj. 



