THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 3^5 



is not the black of a negro ; the features ar^ fmall and 

 llraight as in Europe or Abyflinia. 



All matters in this ftate arc conduced by magic ; and 

 we may fee to what point the human underftanding is de- 

 bafed in the diftance of a few leagues. Let no man fay that 

 ignorance is the caufe, or heat of cHmate, which is the un- 

 inteUigible obfervation generally made on thefe occafions. 

 For why fhould heat of climate addicT: a people to magic 

 more than cold? or, why fhould ignorance enlarge a man's 

 powers, fo that, overleaping the bounds of common intelli- 

 gence, it fhould extend his facidty of converfing with a new 

 fet of beings in another world ? The Ethiopians, who near- 

 ly furround Abyflinia, are blacker than thofe of Gingiro, 

 their country hotter, and are, like them, an indigenous 

 people that have been, from the beginning, in the fame part 

 where they now inhabit. Yet the former neither adore the 

 devil, nor pretend to have a communication with him: they 

 have no human facrifices, nor are there any traces of fuch 

 enormities having prevailed among them. A communica- 

 tion with the fea has been always open, and the Have-trade 

 prevalent from the earlicll times ; while the king of Gin- 

 giro, fhut up in the heart of the continent, facrifices thofe 

 llaves to the devil which he has no oppoi tunity to fell to 

 man. For at Gingiro begins that accurlcd ciiflom of ma- 

 king the fliedding of human blood a neceflary part in all 

 folcmnitics'. How far to the fouthward this reaches I do 

 not know ; but I look upon this to be the geographical 

 bounds of the reign of the devil on the north fide of the 

 equator in the peninfula of Africa. 



S f 2 This 



