THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 13% 
Tuere are likewife pedeftals, whereon the figures of the 
Sphinx have been placed. Twomagnificent flights of fteps, 
feveral hundred feet long, all of granite, exceedingly well- 
fafhioned, and {till in their places, are the only remains of 
a magnificent temple. In the angle of this platform where 
that.temple ftood, is the prefent fmall church of Axum, in 
the place of a former one deftroyed: by Mahomet Gragné, 
in the reign of king David If].; and which was probably 
remains of a temple built by proteins Evergetes, if not the 
awork of times more remote. 
‘Tue church isa mean, {mall building, very ill kept, and 
‘full.of pigeons dung. In it-are fuppofed to be preferved the 
ark of the covenant, and copy ef the law which Menilek fon 
of Solomon is faid, in their fabulous legends, to have ftolen 
from his father Solomon in his ‘return to Ethiopia, and tnefe 
awere reckoned as it were the palladia of this country. 
Some ancient copy of the Old Teftament, I do believe, was 
' -depofited here, probably that from which the firft verfion 
was made. But whatever this:might be, it was deftroyed, 
with the church itfelf, by Mahomet Gragné, though pre- 
tended falfely to fubfift' there ftill. This I had from the 
king himfelf, 
THERE was another relique of great importance that hap- 
pened to efcape from being burnt, by having, in time, been 
transferred to a church in one of the iflands in the lake 
Tzana, called Selé‘Quarat Rafou. It is a picture of Chrift’s 
head crowned with thorns, faid to be painted by St Luke, 
which, upon occafions of the utmoft importance, is brought 
out and carried with the army, efpecially in a war with 
Mahometans and Pagans. We have juft feen, it was taken, 
R2 upon 
