tills 
THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. WER 
LariBALa, as we have already feen, attempted the for- 
mer method with great appearance of fuccefs; and this 
prince, to whom the accidental circumftances of the time 
had given extraordinary powers, and who was otherwife a 
man of great capacity and refolution, might, if he had perfe- 
vered, completed his purpofe, the thing being poffible, that 
is, no law of nature againftit, and all difficulties are only 
relative to the powers vefted in thofe who are engaged in 
the undertaking. Alexander the Great would have fuc- 
ceeded—his father Philip would have mifcarried—Lewis 
the XIV. would perhaps have accomplifhed it, as eafily as 
he united the two feas by the canal of Languedoc, and with 
the fame engineers; but he is the only European prince 
of whom this could have Been ce bina with any degree 
of probability. 
ALPpHoNsO ALBUQUERQUE, Viceroy Of India, is faid to have 
~ wrote frequently to the king of Portugal, Don Emanuel, 
to fend him fome pioneers from Madeira, peopie accuftom- 
ed to level ground, and prepare it for fugar-canes, with 
whofe afliftance he was to execute that enterprife of turn- 
ing the Nile into the Red Sea, and famifhing Egypt. His 
fon mentions this very improbable ftory in his * father’s 
commentaries; and he fays further, that he imaginesitmight 
have been done, becaufe it was aknown fact that the Arabs 
in Upper Egypt, when in rebellion againft the Soldan, ufed 
to interrupt the courfe of the canal between Cofleir on the 
Red Sea, and Kenna in. Egypt 
Vor. UL 4X TELLEZ 
* Alph, d’Albuquerque, Comment. libs iv.-cap. 7. 
