722 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 
courfe of the Nile is before the reader ; and it is plain from 
thence, that the whole rain im Abyflinia muft now go, 
and ever hds gone down into Egypt, and yet the people are 
very fafe in their houfes, and very feldom is the whole 
land of Egypt compleatly overflowed: and it is by no 
means lefs certain from the fame infpection, that, unlefs 
a river as large as the Nile, conftantly full, having its rife 
in countries fubject to perpetual rains, and pouring its 
ftream, which never decreafes, into that river, as the . 
Abiad does at Halfaia, all the waters in Abyfflinia col- 
lected in the Nile would not be fufficient to pafs its 
{canty ftream through the burning deferts of Nubia and 
the Barabra, fo as it fhould be of any utility when arrived 
in Egypt. 
Tue next falfehood in point of fac is that of the monk 
Gregory, who fays that this left branch of the Nile parts 
from it, after having paffed the kingdom of Dongola into- 
Nubia, after which it runs through Elvah, and fo down the 
defert into the Mediterranean, between the Cyrenaicum and 
Alexandria, Now, firft, we know, from the authority of 
all antiquity, that there 1s not a defert more deftitute of 
rivers than that of the Thebaid. This want of water 
(not the diftance) made the voyage to the temple of Ju- 
piter Ammon an enterprife next to defperate, and fo wor- 
thy of Alexander, who never, however, met a river in 
his way; had there been there fuch a flream, there could 
be no doubt that the banks of it would have been fully 
as well inhabited as thofe of the Nile, and the Thebaid 
confequently no defert. Befides the caravans, which for 
ages. 
