614 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



attempt was made, unlcfs they endeavoured to pafs the 

 country of the Shangalla about the end of June or July, 

 when that province, as I have already faid, is absolutely 

 impaflible, by the rapid vegetation of the trees, and the 

 ground being all laid under water, which they might have 

 miftaken for a feries of lakes. 



After all thefe great efforts, the learned of antiquity 

 began to look upon the difcovery as defperate, and not to 

 be attained, for which reafon both poets and hiftorians 

 fpeak of it in a ftrain of defpondency : — 



Secreto defonte cadem ; qui femper inani 

 §>uacrcndus ratione /diet, nee contigit ulli, 

 Hoc vidijjc caput, fertur fine tcjie crcatus* 



Claudian. 



And Pliny, as late as the time of Trajan, fays, that thefe 

 fountains were in his time utterly unknown — N'rfus incertis 

 ortns fontibus, it per deferta et ardentia, et immenfo longitudinis [patio 

 ambulant *, — nor was there any other attempt made later by 

 the ancients. 



From this it is obvious, that none of the ancients ever 

 made this difcovery of the fource of the Nile. They gave it 

 up entirely, and caput Nili quaerere became a proverb, marking 

 the difficulty, or rather the impoilibility, of any under- 

 taking. Let us now examine the pretenlions of the mo- 

 derns. 



The 



* Pliny, Nat. Hift. lib. v. cap. 9. 



