614 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER  _.. 
attempt was made, unlefs: they endeavoured to pafs the 
country of the Shangalla about the end of June or July, 
when that province, as I have already faid, is abfolutely 
impaflible, by the rapid vegetation of the trees, and the: 
ground being all laid under water, which they sien have 
miflaken fora feries of lakes. 
Arrer all thefe great efforts, the learned of antiquity 
began to look upon the difcovery as defperate, and not to 
be attained, for which reafon both poets and hiftorians 
{peak of it in a ftrain of defpondency :-— , 
Secreto de fonte cadens ; qui femper inani 
Quaerendus ratione latet, nec contigit ulli, — 
floc vidiffe caput, fertur fine tefie creaiuse ; 
CLAUDIAN. 
And Pliny, as late as the time of Trajan, fays, that thefe 
fountains were in his time utterly unknown—Wilus incertis 
ortus fontibus, it per deferta et ardentia, et immenfo longitudims fpatio 
ambulans *,—nor was there any other attempt made later by 
the ancients. 
From this it is obvious, that none of the.ancients ever 
made this difcovery of the fource of the Nile. They gave it 
up entirely, and caput Nili quaerere became a proverb, marking 
the difficulty, or rather the impoflibility, of any under- 
taking. Let us now examine the pretenfions of the mo- 
derns. ‘ 
THE 
* Pliny, Nat. Hift. lib. y. cap. 9. 
