THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 5<5i 



Subordination^, if now not entirely gone, was expiring, 

 fo that I fcarcely expe(5led to have intereft enough with my 

 ownfervants to help me to fet up my lai-ge quadrant : Yet 

 I was exceedingly curious to know the fituation of this 

 remarkable place, which Idris the Hybecr declared to be 

 halfway to Aflbuan. But it feems their curioiity was not lefs 

 than mine ; above all, they wanted to prove that Idris was 

 miftaken, and that we were confiderably nearer to Egypt 

 than we were to Barbar. While Idris and the men filled the 

 fkins with water, the Greeks and I fet up the quadrant, and, 

 by obfervation of the two bright liars of Orion, I found the 

 latitude of Chiggre to be 20° 58' 30" N.; fo that, allowing even 

 fome fmall error in the pofition of Syene in the French maps^ 

 Idris's guefs was very near the truth, and both the latitude 

 and longitude of Chiggre and Syene feemed to require no 

 further invelligation. 



During the whole time of the obfervation, an antelope, 

 of a very large kind, went feveral times round and round 

 the quadrant ; and at the time when my eyes were fixed 

 upon the flar, came fo near as to bite a part of my cotton 

 cloth which I had fprcad like a carpet to kneel on. Even 

 when I fiirred, it would leap about two or three yards from 

 me, and then Hand andgaze with fuch attention,thatit would 

 'have appeared to by-llanders (had there been any) that we 

 had been a long time acquainted. The firil idea was 

 tTie common one, to kill it. I eafily could have done this 

 with a lance ; but it feemed fo interelled in what I was do- 

 ing, that I began to think it might perhaps be my good ge- 

 nius which had come to vifit, protedl, and encourage me in 

 the defperacc fituation in which I then was. 



ToL. IV. 4 B C H A P, 



