THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 6it 



neck of land further to the fouth ; and though Eudoxus had 

 failed from the Red Sea around the Cape of Good Hope, 

 which mull have totally deftroyed the pombility of the ex- 

 igence of that land fuppofed to join the two continents, ra- 

 ther than allow this, they neglected the information of this 

 navigator, and treated it as a fable. 



It was the conflant opinion of the Greeks, that no river 

 could rife in the torrid zone, as alfo, that the melting of 

 fnow was the caufe of the overflowing of all rivers in the 

 heat of fummer, and fo of the Nile among the reft ; when, 

 therefore, Alexander heard from his difcoverers, that the 

 Nile,about latitude 9°,ran ftraightto the eaft,and returned no 

 more, he imagined the liver's courfe was eallward through 

 the imaginary neck of land inclofmg the imaginary lake, 

 and joining the peninfula of India, and that the river, after 

 it had croiled, continued north till it came within reach 

 of the thawing of the mows of Mount Caucafus ; and this 

 was alfo the opinion of Ptolemy the geographer. 



Ptolemy PniLADELPHUS,the fecond of thofe princes who 

 had fucceeded to the throne of Alexander in Egypt, was the 

 next who marched into Ethiopia with an army againfl the 

 Shangalla. His object was not only to difcover the fource 

 of the Nile, but alfo to procure a perpetual fupply of ele- 

 phants to enable him to cope with the kings of Syria. The 

 fuccefs of this expedition we have related in the flrfl vo- 

 lume, book ii. chap. v. 



Ptolemy Evergetes, his fucccfTor, in the 27th year of 

 his reign, being in peace with all his neighbours, under- 

 took an expedition to Ethiopia. His defign was certainly 



4H2 to 



