THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. £33 
manufactures of coarfe cotton cloth ; and here too the bef 
parchment is made of goats {kins, whichis the ordinary em- 
ployment of the monks. Every thing feemed later at Axum, 
and near it, than at.Adowa ; the teff was ftanding yet green. 
On the’rgth of January, by a meridian altitude of the fun, 
and amean of feveral altitudes of ftars by night, Ifound the 
latitude of Axum. to be 14° 6’ 36” north.. 
Tue reader will have obferved, that I have taken great’ 
pains in correcting the geography of this country, and 
illuftrating the accounts given us by travellers, as well an- 
cient as modern, and.reconciling them to each other. There 
~are, however, in avery late publication, what I muft fup- 
pofe to be errors, at leaft they are abfolutely unintelligt 
ble to me, whether they are to be placed to the account of 
Jerome Lobo, the original; or to Dr Johnfon the tranflator, 
or to the bookfeller, is what Iam not able to fay. But as the 
book itfelf is ufhered in by a very warm and particular re- 
commendation of fo- celebrated anauthor as Dr. Johnfon, 
and as I have in the courfe of this work fpoke very con- 
temptibly of that Jefuit, I muft, in my own: vindication,. 
make fome obfervations upon the geography of this book, 
which, introduced into the world by fuch authority, might 
elfe bring the little we know of this part of Africa into cons 
fufion,.feom which its maps are.as yet very far from being 
cleared. 
GaxumeE * is faid to mean Axum,. to be a‘city in Africa,. 
capital of the kingdom of Tigre Mahon in Aby{linia. Now,, 
long. 
* See Johnfon’s tranflation of Jerome Lobo, p. 29: 
