THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 721 
who cites the authority of Leo Africanus, and that of his 
monk Gregory, both of them, in thefe refpects, fully as much 
miftaken as the Nubian geographer himfelf. M.Ludolf, after 
quoting a paflage of Pliny, tells us that he had confulted 
the famous Bochart upon that fubject, whether the Nile and 
the Niger (the river that runs through Nigritia into the 
Weftern Ocean) were one and the fame river ? The famous 
Bochart anfwers him peremptorily in the true fpirit of a 
{choolman,—That there is nothing more certain than that 
the Niger is a part of the river Nile. With great fubmiffion, 
however, I muft venture to fay there is not the leaft founda- 
tion for this affertion. 
‘Prrny feems the firft who gave rife to it, but he {peaks 
modeitly upon the fubject, giving his reafons as he goes 
along. “ Nigri fluvio eadem natura, que Nilo, calamum 
“ & papyrum, & eafdem gignit animantes, iifdemque 
“ temporibus augefcit. *” That it has the fame foil from 
which the Nile takes its colour, the water is the fame in 
tafte, produces the fame reeds, and efpecially the papyrus ; 
‘thas the fame animals in it, fuch as the crocodile and hip- 
popotamus, and overflows at the fame feafon; this is faying 
nothing but what may be applied with equal truth to every 
other river between the northern tropic and the Line; but 
the other two authors, the Nubian and the monk, affert each 
of them a direct falfehood. The Nubian fays, that if the 
Nile carried all the rains that fall in Abyffinia down into 
Egypt, the people would not be fafe in their houfes. To 
this I anfwer by a maiter of fact, the map of the whole 
Vox. III. 4% courte 
* Plin. lib, v. cap. 8. 
