THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 6 cr 
J 
enters into the 18th degree, Taurus, and after returning 
fouthward into the 14th degree of the Lion ——Lucan fays 
the fame :— 
Laté tibi gurgite rupto 
Ambitur nigris Meroé feecunda colonis, 
Leta comis hebeni; que quamvis arbore multa 
Frondeat, eftatem nulla fibi mitigat umbra : 
_ Linea tam rettum mundi ferit illa Leonem. 
Now Gojam, being in lat. 10°, could never anfwer this de- 
{cription. 
But there are in thefe lines twe circumftances which are 
peculiar to the peninfula of Athara, or Meroé, and defcri- 
bed as fuch by the poet. The firt is, the inhabitants of Me- 
roé were black, fuch were the Gymnofophifts, the firft phi- 
lofophers and inhabitants of this ifland, and fuch they 
have ever been down to the Saracen conqueft. On the.o- 
ther hand, nobody will pretend to fay that the people of 
Gojam are black ; they are long-haired, and of as fair a com- 
pilexion as other Abyflinians ; nor was it ever fuppofed 
that they had philofophers or fcience among them before 
the Jefuits arrived in the country. 
‘Tue next circumftance, peculiar to Meroé, is, that the ebo- 
mny-tree grew there, which is {pread all over the peninfula of 
Atbara, and out of it this tree is not found, (as far as I know) 
unlefs a few trees in the province of Kuara, in the low.and 
northermoitt part of it; a country, for its intolerable heat, 
‘not inferior to that of Atbara, and contiguous to it; but in 
aAN2z  . Gojam, 
