53© TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



This prince did not adopt the wild idea of turning the 

 courfe of the Nile out of its prefent channel ; upon the pof- 

 iibility or impoilibiiity of which, the argument (fo warmly 

 and ib ioug agitated) always moil improperly turns. His 

 idea was to famim Egypt :. and, as the fertility of that coun- 

 try depends not upon the ordinary liream, but the extraor- 

 dinary increaie of it by the tropical rains, he is laid to 

 have found, by an exact furvey and calculation, that there 

 ran on the fummit, or higheft part of the country, ieveral 

 rivers which could be intercepted by mines, and their ftream 

 directed into the low country fouthward, inftead of joining 

 the Nile, augmenting it and running northward. By this 

 he found he fhould be able fo to difappoint its increafe, that 

 it never would rife to a height proper to fit Egypt for culti- 

 vation. And thus far he was warranted in his ideas of fuc- 

 ceeding (as I have been informed by the people of that 

 country), that he did interfeet and carry into the Indian O- 

 eean, two very large rivers, which have ever iince flowed 

 that way, and he was carrying a level to the lake Zawaia, 

 where many rivers empty themfelves in the beginning of 

 the rains, which would have effectually diverted the courfe 

 of them all, and could not but in fome degree diminiih the 

 current below. 



Death, the ordinary enemy of all thefe fhipendous Her- 

 culean undertakings, interpofed too here, and put a flop to 

 this enterprize of Lalibala. But Amha Yafous, prince of 

 Shoa (in whofe country part of thefe immenfe works were) 

 a young man of great underftanding, and with whom 1 li- 

 ved feveral months in the moft intimate friendfhip at Gon- 

 dar, allured me that they were vifible to this day ; and that 

 they were of a kind whole ufe could not be miftakeni that 



he 



