THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 713 



Lalibala, as we have already fesn, attempted the for- 

 mer method with great appearance of fuccefs ; and this 

 prince, to whom the accidental circumflances of the time 

 had given extraordinary powers, and who was otherwife a 

 man of great capacity and refolution, might, if he had perfe- 

 vered, completed his purpofe, the thing being poflible, that 

 is, no law of nature againft it, and all difficulties are ^nly 

 relative to the powers veiled in thole who are engaged in 

 the undertaking. Alexander the Great would have luc- 

 ceeded — his father Philip would have mifcarried — Lewis 

 the XiV. would perhaps have accomplifhed it, as eafily as 

 he united the two feas by the canal of Languedoc, and with 

 the fame engineers ; but he is the only European prince 

 of whom this could have been expected with any degree 

 of probability. 



Alphonso Albuquerque, viceroy of India, is faid to have 

 wrote frequently to the king of Portugal, Don Emanuel, 

 to fend him fome pioneers from Madeira, people accuftom- 

 ed to level ground, and prepare it for fugar- canes, with 

 whofe affiltance he was to execute that ■enterprife of turn- 

 ing the Nile into the Red Sea, and fa miming Egypt. His 

 fon mentions this very improbable ftory in his * father's 

 commentaries ; and he fays further, that he imaginesitmight 

 have been done, becaufe it was a known fact that the Arabs 

 in Upper Egypt, when in rebellion againft the Soldan, ufed 

 to interrupt the courie of the canal between Cofleiron the 

 Red Sea, and Kenna in Egypt. 



Vol. III. 4 X Tellez 



* A!ph. d'Albucpercpe, Comment, lib. iv. cap. 7. 



