640 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



tain of the Nile to be 36° $5' 30" eait of the meridian of 

 Greenwich. 



The night of the 4th, that very night of my arrival, me- 

 lancholy reflections upon my prefent ftate, the doubtful- 

 nefs of my return in fafety, were I permitted to make the 

 attempt, and the fears that even this would be refufed, ac- 

 cording to the rule obferved in Abyfiinia with all travellers 

 who have once entered the kingdom ; the confcioufnefs of 

 the pain that I was then occafioning to many worthy indi- 

 viduals, expecting daily that information concerning my 

 fituation which it was not in my power to give them ; 

 fome other thoughts, perhaps, Hill nearer the heart than 

 thofe, crowded upon my mind, and forbade all approach of 

 fleep. 



I was, at that very moment, in poffeiiion of what had, 

 for many years, been the principal objecl: of my ambition 

 and willies : indifference, which from the ufual infirmity 

 of human nature follows, at leafl for a time, complete en- 

 joyment, had taken place of it. The marm, and the foun- 

 tains, upon comparifon with the rife of many of our rivers, 

 became now a trifling objecl: in my fight. I remembered 

 that magnificent fcene in my own native country, where 

 the Tweed, Clyde, and Annan rife in one hill ; three rivers, 

 as I now thought, not inferior to the Nile in beauty, prefer- 

 able to it in the cultivation of thofe countries through which 

 they flow ; fuperior, vaflly fuperior to it in the virtues and 

 qualities of the inhabitants, and in the beauty of its flocks; 

 crowding its paftures in peace, without fear of violence from 

 man or beafb I had feen the rife of the Rhine and Rhone, 

 and the more magnificent fources of the Soane ; 1 began, in 

 1 my 



