a 
THESOURCEOFTHENILE — 655 
under thefe, or fuch-like appellations, they pray to the Nile, 
or fpirit refiding in that river. The next name it receives 
is when defcended into Gojam, where it is called Abay. 
Foreigners, of all denominations, not acquainted with the 
language of the country, have, from hearing it was ftiled 
Ab, Father, by the Agows, or Abai, imagined its name Abawt, 
a cafe of that noun, which, in their ignorance, they have: 
made to fignify, the Father. 
Lupo tr, the only one in the age he lived’ that had any 
real knowledge of either the Geez or Amharic, was the firft 
to perceive this: he found in neither of thefe languages A- 
bawi could be a nominative, and confequently could not 
be applied to any thing; and next he as truly found it 
could. not be of the fingular number, and, if fo, could not 
fignify one river. He ftopped, however, as it were, in the 
very brink of difcovery,. for he knew there was no writing 
or letters in Amharic, which were therefore neceffarily 
borrowed from the old and written language Geez, fo that 
all that could be done was, firft, attentively to hear the pro- 
nunciation of the word in' Amharic, and then to write it in 
Geez characters as nearly conformable to the found as pof- 
fible. Now, the name of the river in Amharic is Abay, pro- 
mnouncing the y open, or like two (i), and the fenfe of that 
word fo wrote in Geez, as well as Amharic, is, “ the river 
“ that fuddenly fwells, or overflows, periodically with rain ;” 
than which a.more appofite name could never have been. 
invented.. . 
By the Gongas, on the fouth of the mountains Dyre and 
Tegla,who are indigenz, the river is called Dh, and,on the 
morth of thefe mountains, where the great cataracts are by 
i. the: 
