932 
from Gondar to the fountains, of which 
the editor has published an extract, is 
minute and copious, and in one instance 
it explains the nature of thase embellish- 
ments which Bruce has so freely intro- 
duced into his Travels. On Wednesday, 
the 3ist of October, it mentions the first 
interview with Fasil, who had arrived over- 
night, and whom they found encamped 
in the morning, in the same valley with 
themselves. He received them courte- 
ously, presented Balugani with a horse, 
and supplied them with a guide to the 
fountains; but there is no intimation of 
Bruce’s angry interview with Fasil on the 
preceding evening, or of his feats that 
morning upon Fasil’s horse. Balugani 
appears, from his letters, (vol. I. p. 301,) 
to have been an artist of unassuming me- 
rit; and his death, which happened at 
Gondar in February, 1771, is antedated 
by Bruce a whole twelvemonth, in oppo- 
sition to the evidence of his daily hand- 
writing in the differentjournals; for which 
it is impossible to assign any better rea- 
son than a desire to deprive him of the 
drawings done in Abyssinia, and perhaps 
of the honour of having accompanied his 
master to the source of the Nile. Voi. I, 
p- ccciv. cclx.19; Vol. IV p. 426. 
The principal objection remains, that 
these are not the real sources of the genu- 
ine Nile. The different branches of the 
Nile were well known to the ancient geo- 
graphers, namely, the Astaboras, or mo- 
dern Tacazze, the most eastern branch, 
which receiving the Mareb, joins the Nile 
in the Nubian desart; the Astapus, the 
present Bahra al Asrek, or Blue IRtiver, 
forming the Abyssinian branch of the 
Nile, the origin of which from the lake of 
Coloe, or Tzane, was known to Ptolemy, 
and to the source of which our author 
certainly penetrated, if any one of the 
numerous torrents discharged amd lost in 
the lake can be called its source. But 
the western and principal branch, the 
Bahr el Abiad, or White River, remains 
unexplored; the remete and secret 
sources of which are placed, both by an- 
cient and modern geographers, by Pto- 
lemy, Edrisi, and Abulfeda, by D’Anville 
and Rennel, in the Jibbel el Kumri, or 
Mountains of the Moon. The authori- 
ties produced by Rennel for the rise and 
course of the Bahr el Abiad, are very 
candidly admitted by the editor, who 
maintains, however, that the only ques- 
tion is, whether Bruce, who saw and has 
described its junction with the Bahr al 
Azrek at Halfeia, about nine day’s jour- 
ney below Sennaar, was conscious that it 
On the Credit due to Bruce’s Travels. 
[Jan. J, 
was the Nile. The White River was un- 
known to the Portuguese, who entered 
Abyssinia from the East; and the uni- 
form belief both of the jesuits and Abys- 
sinians might afford a strong presumption 
of Mr. Bruce believing also that the Blue ~ 
River was the Nile of antiquity, if he had 
not inadvertently betrayed his knowledge 
of a different and far more considerable 
stream. On his first pretended interview 
with Fasil; the latter, in answer to his re- 
quest to see the source of the Abey or 
Nile, replied in our author’s language, 
““ The source of the Abey? why, it is 
God knows where; in the country of 
the Gala—are you to get there, do you 
think, in a twelvemonth or more? ‘The 
substance of this conversation probably 
passed at the first and only real interview 
with Fasil next morning; and it relates 
indisputably to the remote source of the 
Bahr el Abiad; but on our author’s. ex- 
plaining that the object of his curiosity 
was near Sacala (the source of the Blue 
River within seventy miles), Fasil imme- 
diately complied with his request. In re- 
turning from Abyssinia, he describes the 
junction of the two rivers at Wed Hojela 
near Halfeia:—“ The river Abiad, which 
is larger than the Nile, joins it there; 
still the Nile preserves the name of Bahr 
al Azergue, or Blue River, which it got 
at Sennar. The Abiad is a very deep ri- 
yer, it runs dead; and with little inclina- 
tion, and preserves its stream always un- 
diminished, because rising in latitudes 
where there are continual rains, it there- 
fore suffers not the decrease the Nile 
does by six months dry weather.” Vol. 
VI. 424. But his journais are still more 
copious, important, and explicit, than his 
Travels. 
At Feawa, he writes, “ Between the 
Nile and the Bahr el Aice, is the country 
of Gold. It is south from the Sennaar 
and west from Hasecl. This is pro- 
perly, the country of the Fungi.” At 
Sennaar he writes, “ The Nileat Barbock 
is like, or greater than the Thames at 
Richmond; itis calJed the Bahr Azergue; 
and in some places not above two feet deep. 
Between the Nile or Azergue, and the 
Abiad, or Bahr el Aice,is another sort 
of INuba, and this is Nuba proper and the 
Gold country.—These (Shiloek) inhabit 
the large islands in the river el Aice; a 
river which, rising in a country south of 
Narea, is supplied with perpetual rains 
which fall under and within four degrees 
of the line; and it is always full, and ne- 
ver diminishes as the Nile does; in the 
latitade of whose fountains the rains pre- 
va, 
id 
