THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 721 



who cites the authority of Leo Africanus, and that of his 

 monk Gregory, both of them, in thefe relpeds, fully as much 

 miftaken as the Nubian geographer himfelf. M.Ludolf, after 

 quoting a paffage of Pliny, tells us that he had confulted 

 the famous Bochart Upon that fubject, whether the Nile and 

 the Niger (the river that runs through Nigritia into the 

 Weftern Ocean) were one and the fame river ? The famous 

 Bochart anfwers him peremptorily in the true fpirit of a 

 fchoolman, — That there is nothing more certain than that 

 the Niger is a part of the river Nile. With great fubmimon, 

 however, I mull venture to fay there is not the leail founda- 

 tion, for this allertion. 



Pliny feems the firfl who gave rife to it, but he fpeaks 

 modetlly upon the fubjeet, giving his reafons as he goes 

 along. " Nigri fluvio eadem natura, quae Nilo, calamum 

 " & papyrum, & eafdem gignit animantes, iifdemque 

 " temporibus augefcit. *" That it has the fame foil from 

 which the Nile takes its colour, the water is the fame in 

 talle, produces the fame reeds, and efpecially the papyrus; 

 has the fame animals in it, fucli as the crocodile and hip- 

 popotamus, and overflows at the fame feafon ; this is faying 

 nothing but what maybe applied with equal truth to every 

 other river between the northern tropic and the Line ; but 

 the other two authors, the Nubian and the monk, alien each 

 cf them a direct falfehood. The Nubian fays, that if the 

 Nile carried all the rains that fall in Abyffinia down into 

 Egypt, the people would not be fafe in their houfes. To 

 this I anfwer by a matter of fact, the map of the whole 



Vol. III. 4 Y courfe 



Plin, lib. v. cap. 8. 



