THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 719 



confift of furs, cotton, filk, and woollen cloths, which are 

 fluffs the moft retentive of the infection, no accident hap- 

 pens to thofe who wear them from this their happy con- 

 fidence. 



I shall here fum up all that I have to fay relating to the 

 river Nile, with a tradition handed down to us by Herodo- 

 tus, the father of ancient hiftory, upon which moderns lefs 

 inftru^ted have grafted a number of errors. Herodotus * 

 fays, that he was informed by the fecretary of Minerva's 

 treafury, that one half of the water of the Nile flowed due 

 north into Egypt, while the other half took an oppofite 

 courfe, and flowed diredUy fouth into Ethiopia. 



The fecretary was probably of that country himfelf, and 

 feems by his observation to have known more of it than all 

 the ancients together. In fact, we have feen that, between 

 1 3 and 14 N. latitude,*the Nile, with all its tributary itrcams, 

 which have their rife and courfe within the tropical rains, 

 falls down into the flat country, (the kingdom of Sennaar), 

 which is more than a mile lower than the high country in 

 AbyiTmia, and thence, with a little inclination, it runs into- 

 Egypt.. 



Again, in lat. 9 in the kingdom of Gingero, the Zebee 

 runs fouth, or fouth-eait, into the inner Ethiopia, as do ajfo 

 many other rivers, and, as I have heard from the natives of 

 that country, empty themfelves into a lake, as thofe on the 

 north of the Line do into the lake Tzana; thence diflribiwe 



their 



* Herod. lib. ii. p. 98. feft.22. 



