THE SOURCE OF THE NILE 633 
Non fabula mendax 
Aufa loqui de fonte tuo eft: ubicunque videris, 
Quereris; et null contingit gloria genti, 
Ut Nilo fit leta fuo, tua fiumina prodam, 
Quad Deus undarum celator, Nile, tuarum 
Le miki néffe dedit.————— 
Lucan. 
THE Agows of Damot pay divine honour to the Nile; 
they worfhip the river, and thoufands of cattle have been 
offered, and ftill are offered, to the fpirit fuppofed to refide 
at its fource. They are divided into clans, or tribes; and 
itis worthy of obfervation, that it is faid there never was 
a feud, or hereditary animofity between any two of thefe 
clans; or, if the feeds of any fuch were fown, they did not 
vegetate longer than till the next general convocation of all 
the tribes, who meet annually at the fource of the river, 
to which they facrifice, calling it by the name of the 
God of Peace. One of the leaft confiderable of thefe clans, for 
power and number, has ftill the preference among its bre- 
thren, from the circumftance that, in its territory, and near 
the miferable village that gives it name, are fituated the 
much fought-for fprings from which the Nile rifes. 
Gezesu, however, though not farther diftant from theie 
than 600 yards, is not in fight of the fources of the Nile. 
The country, upon the fame plane with the fountains, ter- 
minates ina cliff about 300 yards deep down to the plain of 
Affoa, which flat country continues in the fame fubaltern 
degree of elevation, till it meets the Nile again about feven- 
ty miles fotthward, after it has made the circuit of the pro- 
-winces of Gojam and Damot. This cliff feems purpofely 
Vo, Il, AL fafhioned 
