474 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



great windings of the Nile, he fhould have been obliged to 

 travel to the north-eaft. This would have plainly carried 

 him back to the defert of Bahiouda, and the Arabs : his 

 coiirfe . muft have been S. W. to avoid the windings of the 

 Nile, becaiife he came to Herbagi, which he <lefcribes very 

 properly as a delicious iituation. The next day they came 

 to Sennaar. 



The reader, I hope, will eafily perceive that my intention 

 is not to criticife Mr Poncet's journey. That has been done 

 already fo illiberally and unjuftly that it has nearly 

 brought it into difrepute and oblivion. My intention is to 

 illuftrate it ; to examine the fads, the places, and diftan- 

 ces it contains ; to correal the miftakes where it has any, 

 and rellore it to the place it ought to hold in geography 

 and difcovery. It was the firft intelligible itinerary made 

 through thefe deferts ; and I conceive it will be long before 

 we have another ; at any rate, to reftorc and eflablifli the old 

 one will, in all fenfible minds, be the next thing to having 

 made a fecond experiment. 



He furcly is in fome degree of miftake about the iituation 

 of Scnnaur when he fays it is upon an eminence. It is on a 

 plain clofe on the weflern banks of the Nile. A fmall error,' 

 too, has been made about its latitude. By an obfcrvation faid 

 to have been made by father Brcvedcnt, the 21ft of March 

 1699, ^^'^ found the latitude of Scnnaar to be 13° 4' north. 

 The French maps, the mod correct we have in all that re- 

 gards the eaft, place this capital of Nubia in lat. 15° and a 

 few mimues. But the public may reft afliired, that the 

 correct latitude of Sennaar, by a mean of very fmall differ- 



enees. 



