722 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



courfe of the Nile is before the reader ; and it is plain from 

 thence, that the whole rain in AbyfTinia muft now go, 

 and ever has gone down into Egypt, and yet the people are 

 very fafe in their houfes, and very feldom is the whole 

 land of Egypt compleatly overflowed : and it is by no 

 means lefs certain from the fame infpection, that, unlefs 

 a river as large as the Nile, conftantly full, having its rife 

 in countries fubject to perpetual rains, and pouring its 

 ftream, which never decreafes, into that river, as the 

 Abiad does at Halfaia, all the waters in Abyilinia col- 

 lected in the Nile would not be fufhcient to pafs its 

 fcanty ftream through the burning deferts of Nubia and 

 the Barabra, fo as it mould be of any utility when arrived 

 in Egypt. 



The next falfehood in point of fact is that of the monk 

 Gregory, who fays that this left branch of the Nile parts 

 from it, after having paffed the kingdom of Dongola into 

 Nubia, after which it runs through Elvah, and fo down the 

 defert into the Mediterranean, between the Cyrenaicum and 

 Alexandria, Now, nrft, we know, from the authority of 

 all antiquity, that there is not a defert more deftitute of 

 rivers than that of the Thebaid. This want of water 

 (not the diftance) made the voyage to the temple of Ju- 

 piter Ammon an enterprife next to defperate, and fo wor- 

 thy of Alexander, who never, however, met a river in 

 his way ; had there been there fuch a ftream, there could 

 be no doubt that the banks of it would have been fully 

 as well inhabited as thofe of the Nile, and the Thebaid 

 confequently no defert.. Befides the caravans, which for 



ages 



