106 OF THE EARLIER 



ancient Ethiopians, and the original, I believe, of 

 the Egyptian god Serapis. The true blue river is, 

 in fact, the Nile itself, "nil" being the name of 

 indigo at the present day all along the valley of 

 that river ; and in the same language, let it be 

 borne in mind, as every other important designation 

 of this interesting part of the world, the word 

 " nil" is still the word for blue, and with such a 

 signification we find it in many names of places 

 both in India and Persia, of which a familiar 

 example is the celebrated Sanatarium station, near 

 Madras, of Neilgherry, from Nila gira, the blue 

 hills. The sacred colour, also, that which distin- 

 guished the priests of ancient Egypt, was blue, and 

 no doubt bore some reference to the name of the 

 river, which was originally the object of their 

 worship, for in the names of two of its principal 

 branches, Apis and Serapis, we have the elements 

 of the words Abi and Assaabi, the terminal sigma 

 being the usual Grecian affix to foreign names. 



In this manner I bring in the authority of 

 Herodotus, and of the Egyptian priest who informed 

 him of the origin of the Nile, in support of my 

 views respecting the rivers of Abyssinia.* It is 



* None of the Egyptians, or Africans, or Grecians, with whom I 

 had any discourse, would own to me their knowledge of the fountains 

 of the Nile, except only a scribe of the sacred treasury of Minerva, in 

 the city Sais in Egypt. He, indeed, cheerfully told me that he cer- 

 tainly was acquainted with them. But this was the account he gave, 

 that there were two mountains, with peaked tops, situated between 

 Syene, a city of Thebais, and Elephantina ; the name of one of 



