MEMOIR OP BRUCE. 73 
governor, and would pay for every thing without 
exacting taxes or military service. 
It is scarcely necessary to inform the intelligent 
reader, that Bruce’s discovery, after all, left the 
great geographical problem (the real sources of the 
Nile), which had occupied the attention of so many 
ages, and baffled the efforts of Cambyses, Alexander, 
and Ptolemy, still unresolved. It is well known, 
that in the kingdom of Nubia, about sixteen degrees 
north of the equator, the great river of Egypt splits 
into two main branches, called the Bahr el Azrek 
or Blue River, flowing from the eastward, and the 
Bahr el Abiad or White River, which takes a 
western course. These names they derive from the 
respective colour of their waters, a fact which shows 
that they flow through tracts of country differing 
entirely in the qualities of their soil. At' their 
junction, the White River is by far the larger of 
the two; and for more than a league after their 
meeting, the waters on each side retain their peculiar 
colour. There can be no doubt, that this is the 
main artery of the Egyptian Nile. This, Bruce him- 
self, much to his honour, admits ; and conjectures, 
from the larger volume of water, that it must pro- 
ceed from a more remote source ; so remote, that it 
yet remains undiscovered, except in the dark float- 
ing clouds of the tropics, which give back in perio- 
dical rains those copious exhalations which they 
draw from the great basin of the Mediterranean. 
But though this fact is allowed, it scarcely plucks 
a single berry from the laurels of Bruce. The 
