THE SOURCE OF THE NIL IS. 2c : 



accuracy, as to aver they had kept their courfe within five 

 leagues, between India and Babelmandeb. Yet they had 

 made no eftimation of the currents without the * Babs, nor 

 the different very ftrong ones foon after palling Socotra ; 

 their half-minute glaffes upon a medium ran 57"; they had 

 made no obfervation on the tides or currents in the Red 

 Sea, either in the channel or in the inward pafTage ; yet 

 there is delineated in this map a courfe of Captain Newland's, 

 which he kept in the middle of the channel, full of iharp 

 angles and fhort ftretches ; you would think every yard 

 was meafured and founded. 



To the fpurious catalogue of foundings found in the old 

 chart above mentioned, there is added a double proportion 

 of new, from what authority is not known; fo that from 

 Mocha, to la*. 17 you have as it were foundings every 

 mile, or even lefs. No one can caft his eyes on the upper 

 part of the map, but mull think the Red Sea one of the mod 

 frequented places in the world. Yet I will aver, without fear 

 of being contradicted, that it is a charadteriftic of the Red 

 Sea, fcarcc to have foundings in any part of the channel, 

 and often on both fides, whilft alhore foundings are hardly 

 found a boat-length from the main. To this I will add, that 

 there is fcarce one ifland upon which I ever was, where the 

 boltfprit was not over the land, while there were no found- 

 ings by a line heaved over the Hern. I muft then proteft 

 againft making thefe old molt erroneous maps a founda- 

 tion for new ones, as they can be of no ufe, but mull be of 



LI2 detriment. 



*.Tijis is a common failor's phrifs for the Straits of Babelmandetj. 



