THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 



T 2S 



manufactures of coarfe cotton cloth ; and here too the belt 

 parchment is made of goats fkins, which is the ordinary em- 

 ployment of the monks. Every thing feemed later at Axum, 

 and near it, than at Adowa ; the teffwas Handing yet green. 



On the 19th of January, by a meridian altitude of the fun, 

 and a mean of feveral altitudes of liars by night, 1 found the 

 latitude of Axum to be 14* 6' 36" north. .. 



The reader will have obferved, that I have taken great 

 pains in correcting the geography of this country, and 

 illuflrating the accounts given us by travellers, as well an- 

 cient as modern, and reconciling them to each other. There 

 are, however, in a very late publication, what I mult fup- 

 pofe to be errors, at leaft they are abfolutely unintelligi- 

 ble to me, whether they are to -be placed to the account of 

 Jerome Lobo, the original, or to Dr Johnfon the tranflator, 

 or to the bookfelleiyis what I am not able to fay. But as the 

 book itfelf is ufliered in by a very warm and particular re- 

 commendation of fo celebrated an author as Dr Johnfon, 

 and as I have in the courfe of* this work fpoke very con- 

 temptibly of that Jefuit, I nruft, in my own vindication, 

 make fome obfervations upon the geography of this book, 

 which, introduced into the world by fuch authority, might 

 elie bring the little we know of this part of Africa into con- 

 fufion, from which its map$ are as yet very far from being 

 cleared. 



Caxume * is faid to mean Axum, to be a city in Africa, 

 capital of the kingdom of Tigre Mahon in Abyffinia. Now, 

 long 



* See Johnfon's tranfktion af Jerome Lcbo, p. 29. 



