100 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
the chief events of its history, which combined to make 
his work the most important hitherto published about 
Abyssinia. 
It was in the course of one of these excursions that 
Bruce discovered the sources of the Blue Nile, which he 
took to be the true Nile. Arrived at the church of St. 
Michael, at Geesh, where the river is only four paces 
wide, and some four inches deep, Bruce became con¬ 
vinced that its sources must be in the neighbourhood, 
although his guide assured him that he must cross a 
mountain before he found them. The traveller was not 
to be deceived. 
“ Come ! come ! ” said Bruce, “ no more words. It 
is already late ; lead me to Geesh and the sources of 
the Nile, and show me the mountain that separates us 
from it.” “ He then made me go round to the south of 
the church, and coming out of the grove of cedars sur¬ 
rounding it, ‘ This is the mountain,’ he said, looking 
maliciously up into my face, c that when you were on 
the other side of it, was between you and the fountains 
of the Nile; there is no other. Look at that green 
hillock in the centre of that marsh. It is there that 
the two fountains of the Nile are to be found. Geesh 
is at the top of the rock, where you see those very 
green trees. If you go to the fountains, pull off your 
shoes as you did the other day, for these people are all 
Pagans, and they believe in nothing that you believe, 
but only in the Nile, to which they pray every day as 
if it were God, as you perhaps invoke it yourself.’ I 
took off my shoes, and rushed down the hill towards the 
little green island, which was about two hundred yards 
distant. The whole of the side of the hill was carpeted 
with flowers, the large roots of which protruded above 
the surface of the ground; and as I was looking down, 
and noticing that the skin was peeling off the bulbs, I 
had two very severe falls before I reached the edge of 
the marsh ; but at last I approached the island with its 
green sod. It was in the form of an altar, and appa¬ 
rently of artificial construction. I was in rapture as I 
gazed upon the principal fountain, which rises in the 
