SE 
a 
THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. g6%. 
SuBoRDINATION, if now not entirely gone, was expiring, 
fo that I fcarcely expected to have intereft enough with my 
-own fervants to help me to fet up my large quadrant: Yet 
I was exceedingly curious to know the fituatioh of this 
remarkable place, which Idris the Hybeer declared to be 
half way to Affouan. But it feems their curiofity was not lefe 
‘than mine; above all, they wanted to prove that Idris was 
aiftaken, and that we were confiderably nearer to Egypt 
than we were to Barbar. While Idris and the men filled the 
dkins with water, the Greeks and I fet up the quadrant, and, 
by obfervation of the two bright ftars of Orion, I found the 
latitude of Chiggre to be 20° 58’ 30”N.; fo that, allowing even 
fome {mall 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 inveftigation. 
- Durine 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 ftar, came fo near as ‘to bite a part of my cotton 
cloth which I had fpread like a carpet to kneel on.. Even 
when I ftirred, it would leap about two or three vards from 
me, and then ftand and gaze with fuch attention, thatit would 
have appeared to by-ftanders (had there been any) that we 
had been a long time acquainted. The firft idea was 
the common one, to kill it. I eafily could have done this 
with a lance; but it feemed fo interefted in what I was do- 
ing, that I began to think it might perhaps be my good ge- 
nius which had come to vifit, prote¢t, and encourage me in 
the defperate fituation in which I then was, 
Vor. IV, | 4B CHAP. 
