EARLIEST EXPLORERS. 
13 
that it was not possible to struggle through them, either 
on foot or in a boat, unless it were a very small one 
containing only one person. There, they added, we saw 
two rocks, from which there fell a river with a great 
mass of water.” 
The last statement is unintelligible, and must in all 
probability have really referred to some other locality ; 
but it is impossible not to recognise in the rest of the 
description a correct picture of the great marshes on the 
course of the White Nile, above its junction with the 
Sobat, which were first rediscovered in modern times by 
the Egyptian exploring expeditions in 1839 and 1840, 
and have recently been rendered familiar to all by the 
graphic accounts of Sir S. Baker. No such marshes are 
found lower down the course of the Nile, and hence we 
may assume with confidence that the explorers of Nero 
had actually penetrated as far as the ninth parallel of 
north latitude, where the great marshes referred to com¬ 
mence. The friendly reception accorded them by the 
King of Ethiopia, and the facilities furnished by him 
towards their further progress, will explain their having 
advanced so far, and reached a point which was not 
again visited by any European for nearly eighteen cen¬ 
turies. 
We need only mention the great work of Ptolemy ; 
he himself was probably not a traveller, but a resident, 
