THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 



49: 



his ordering the lafl: Jefuit Bernard Nogueyra, to be pubhc- 

 ly hanged. Now Gondar was not bulk till the end of the 

 reign of Hannes I. who was grandfon to Socinios, that is 

 about the year 1680. Unlefs, then, thefe holy Jefuits, who, 

 if- we believe the miflionaries, had all of them a fight into 

 futurity before their martyrdom, had, from thefe their hjl 

 vijions, described Gondar as capital of Abyffinia, it does not 

 occur to me liow they Ihould be hiflorians of a facfl that 

 had not exiftence till 50 years after they were dead. 



Thirdly, Poncet fpeaks of towns and villages in Ethio- 

 pia ; whereas it is known there are no towns, villages, or ci- 

 ties, but Axum. — I beheve that if the Abyffinians, who built 

 the large and magnificent city of Axum, never had other 

 cities, towns, and villages, they were in this the moil fm- 

 gular people upon earth ; or, if places where 6000 inhabi- 

 tants live together in contiguous houfes, feparated with 

 broad llreets where there are churches and markets, be not 

 towns and villages, I do not know the meaning of the term ; 

 but if thefe are towns, Poncet hath faid truth ; and many 

 more fuch towjis, which he never did fee nor defcribe, are 

 in Abyffinia at this day. 



Fourthly, The Abyffinians live, and always have lived, 

 in tents, not in houfes. — It would have been a very extraor- 

 dinary idea in people living in tents to have built fuch a ci- 

 ty as Axum, whofe ruins are as large as thofe of Alexandria ; 

 and it would be ilill more extraordinary, that people, in fuch 

 a climate asAbyffi.nia,inthewhole of which there is fcorching 

 weather for fix months, deluges of rain, Ilorms of wind, thun- 

 der, lightning, and hurricanes, fuch as are unknown in 

 Europe, for the other fix, fliould choofe to live in tents, after 

 3 knowing 



