7 2o TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



their waters to the eaft and to the weft. Thefe become the 

 heads of great rivers that run through che interior cqutl- 

 tries of Ethiopia (correfponding to the fea-coaft or Melinda 

 and Mombaza) into the Indian Ocean, whilft, on the weft- 

 ward, they are the origin of the valt i i; s that fall into 

 the Atlantic, palling through Benin and Congo, fouthward 

 of the river Gambea, and the Sierraleona. 



In fhort, the periodical rains from the tropic of Capricorn 

 to the Line, being in equal quantity with thofe that fall 

 between the Line and the tropic of Cancer, it is plain, that 

 if the land of Ethiopia floped equally from the Line fouth- 

 ward and northward, half of the rains that fall on each fide 

 would go north, and half fouth, but as the ground from 5* 

 N. declines all fouthward, it follows that the river which 

 runs to the fouthward mull be equal to thofe that run to the 

 northward, plus the rain that falls in the 5 north latitude, 

 where the ground begins to flope to the fouthward, and 

 there can be little doubt this is at lead one of the reafons 

 why there are in the fouthern continent fo many rivers 

 larger than the Nile that run both into the Indian and At- 

 lantic Oceans. 



From this very true and fenfible relation handed to us by 

 Herodotus, from the authority of the fecretary or Minerva, 

 the Nubian geographer has framed a fiction of his own, 

 which is, that the river Nile divides itfelfinto two branch es,one 

 of which runs into Egypt northward, and one through the 

 country of the negroes weilward, into the Atlantic Ocean. 

 And this opinion has been greedily adopted by M. Ludolf*, 



who 



* Vid. Ludolf in Proemio Hiftor. iEt'.-iop. i. 8. K. lib. !. cap. yiii. p. 178. L;o Africam.8 

 in defcrip. Africa, lib. i. C3p. < ii. 



