GEOGRAPHICAL SYSTEMS 
tions of newly discovered countries, exaggeration 
is a prominent feature ; but I know of no instance 
in which it has taken place to so extravagant a de- 
gree* From Massuah, to the southern extremity 
of the lake of Dembea, the actual distance does 
not exceed four hundred miles in the maps allud- 
ed to, it scarcely falls short of two thousand. It 
is difficult to account for so enormous an error in 
a country which was traversed, at different times, 
by so considerable a number of missionaries. The 
only cause which it seems possible to assign is, that, 
as they followed a very irregular and winding 
course, for the purpose of visiting, sometimes their 
own scattered establishments, sometimes the court 
of the king or principal lords, their unskilfulness 
might lead them to extend, in a straight line, the 
whole of this devious tract ; which, combined with 
the natural propensity to magnify their own deeds> 
might lead to this enormous amplification. The Nile 
was also made to issue from the northern side of the 
lake, so that all the windings of its semicircular sweep 
round Gojam, were extended in a straight line 
from south to north. This immense extension of 
Abyssinia brought it to the frontier of Congo, 
without the latter making a step to meet it. The 
magnitude of Congo, in fact, is scarcely at all ex- 
aggerated ; a very rare case in such circumstances, 
and which, perhaps, could only have happened, be- 
cause geographers found the interior so blocked up 
