I confess this complicated piece of roguery, so suddenly invented, and

so successfully carried into execution, gave me, for the first time,

serious reflections upon my own situation, as we were in fact entirely

in this man’s hand. Ayto Aylo’s servant, indeed, continued with me, but

he was now out of his knowledge and influence, and, from many hints he

had given, very desirous of returning home: he seemed to have no great

opinion of Woldo, and, indeed, had been in low spirits, and disgusted

with our journey, since he had seen the reception I first met with from

Fasil at Bamba; but I had use for him till we should arrive at the

house of Shalaka Welled Amlac, which was in the middle of Maitsha, and

in the way by which we were to return. I had therefore been very kind

to him, allowing him to ride upon one of my mules all the way. I had

given him some presents likewise, and promised him more, so that he

continued with me, though not very willingly, observing every thing,

but saying little; however, to me it was plain that Woldo stood in awe

of him, for fear probably of his master Fasil, for Aylo had over him

a most absolute influence, and Guebra Ehud (Aylo’s brother) had been

present, when Aylo’s servant set out with us from Bamba under charge of

this Woldo.

To Woldo, too, I had been very attentive: I had anticipated what I saw

were his wishes, by small presents and more considerable promises. I

had told him plainly at Bamba, in presence of Fasil’s Fit-Auraris and

Ayto Welleta Michael, (Ras Michael’s nephew) that I would reward him

in their sight according to his behaviour; that I scarcely thanked him

for his being barely faithful, for so he was accountable to his master,

whose honour was pledged for my safety; but that I expected he would

not attempt to impose upon me, nor suffer others to do so, nor terrify

me unnecessarily upon the road, nor obstruct me in my pursuits, be

sulky, or refuse to answer the inquires that I made about the countries

through which we were to pass. All this was promised, repromised, and

repeatedly sworn to, and the Fit-Auraris had assured me that he knew

certainly this man would please me, and that Fasil was upon honour

when he had chosen him to attend me, although he had then use for him

in other business; and it is not less true, that, during the whole of

our journey hitherto, he had behaved perfectly to the letter of his

promise, and I had omitted no opportunity to gratify him by several

anticipations of mine.

I had upon me a large beautiful red-silk sash, which went six or seven

times round, in which I carried my crooked knife and two pistols;

he had often admired the beauty of it, inquired where it was made,

and what it might have cost. I had answered often negligently and at

random, and I had thought no more of it, as his inquiries had gone no

further. The time which he had fixed upon was not yet come, and we

shall presently see how very dexterously he prolonged it.

We arrived, with these delays, pretty late at Goutto, (the village so

called) and took up our lodgings in the house of a considerable person,

who had abandoned it upon our approach, thinking us part of Fasil’s

army. Though this habitation was of use in protecting us from the poor,

yet it hurt us by alarming, and so depriving us of the assistance of

the opulent, such as the present owner, who, if he had known we were

strangers from Gondar, would have willingly staid and entertained us,

being a relation and friend of Shalaka Welled Amlac.

As we heard distinctly the noise of the cataract, and had still a full

hour and a half of light, while they were in search of a cow to kill,

(the cattle having been all driven away or concealed) I determined

to visit the water-fall, lest I should be thereby detained the next

morning. As Fasil’s horse was fresh, by not being rode, I mounted

him instead of driving him before me, and took a servant of my own,

and a man of the village whom Woldo procured for us, as I would not

allow him to go himself. Being well armed, I thus set out, with the

peasant on foot, for the cataract; and, after riding through a plain,

hard country, in some parts very stony, and thick-covered with trees,

in something more than half an hour’s easy galloping all the way, my

servant and I came straight to the cataract, conducted there by the

noise of the fall, while our guide remained at a considerable distance

behind, not being able to overtake us.

This, known by the name of the First Cataract of the Nile, did not by

its appearance come up to the idea we had formed of it, being scarce

sixteen feet in height, and about sixty yards over; but in many places

the sheet of water is interrupted, and leaves dry intervals of rock.

The sides are neither so woody nor verdant as those of the cataract

of the Assar; and it is in every shape less magnificent, or deserving

to be seen, than is the noble cataract at Alata before described,

erroneously called the Second Cataract; for below this there is a

water-fall, nearly west of the church of Boskon Abbo, not much above

the place where we swam our horses over in May, and less than this

first cataract of which I am speaking, and nearer the source; there is

another still smaller before the Nile joins the river Gumetti, after

falling from the plains of Sacala; and there are several still smaller

between the fountains and the junction of the Nile with the river

Davola; these last mentioned, however, are very insignificant, and

appear only when the Nile is low: in the rainy season, when the river

is full, they scarcely are distinguished by ruffling the water as it

passes.

Having satisfied my curiosity at this cataract, I galloped back the

same road that I had come, without having seen a single person since I

left Goutto. Fasil’s horse went very pleasantly, he did not like the

spur, indeed, but he did not need it. On our arrival we found a cow

upon the point of being killed; there was no appearance of any such

to be found when I set out for the cataract, but the diligence and

sagacity of Woldo had overcome that difficulty. By a particular manner

of crying through his hands applied to his mouth, he had contrived to

make some beasts answer him, who were hid in an unsuspected bye-place,

one of which being detected was killed without mercy.

It was now, I thought, the proper time to give Woldo a lesson as to

the manner in which I was resolved to behave among the Agows, who I

knew had been reduced to absolute poverty by Fasil after the battle of

Banja. I told him, that since the king had given me the small territory

of Geesh, I was resolved to take up my abode there for some time;

and also, to make my coming more agreeable, it was my intention for

that year to discharge them of any taxes which they paid the king, or

their superior Fasil, in whose places I then stood. “Stay, says Woldo,

don’t be in such a hurry, see first how they behave.”--“No, said I, I

will begin by teaching them how to behave; I will not wait till their

present misery prompts them to receive ill (as they very naturally will

do) a man who comes, as they may think, wantonly for curiosity only,

to take from them and their starved families the little Fasil has left

them; the question I ask you then is briefly this, Do you conceive

yourself obliged to obey me, as to what I shall judge necessary to

direct you to do, during my journey to Geesh and back again?” He

answered, By all means, or he could never else return to his master

Fasil. “This, then, said I, is the line of conduct I mean to pursue

while I am among the Agows; you shall have money to buy every thing;

you shall have money, or presents, or both, to pay those that serve

us, or that shew us any kindness, and when we shall join your master

Fasil (as I hope we shall do together) you shall tell him that I have

received his majesty’s rent of the Agows of Geesh, and I will enter

a receipt for it in the king’s deftar, or revenue-book at Gondar, if

we see him there, as I expect we shall, upon my return. I, moreover,

undertake, that we shall gain more by this than by any other method

we could have pursued.” “There is one thing, however, says Woldo, you

would not surely have me free them the dues paid by every village where

a king’s servant is employed to conduct strangers, as I am you.” “No,

no, I do not go so near as that; we shall only buy what you would have

otherwise taken by force for my use.”

“Some years ago, says Woldo, when I was a young man, in king Yasous’s

time, a white man, called Negadé Ras Georgis, had both Geesh and Sacala

given him by the king; he went there twice a-year, and staid a month

or more at a time; he was a great hunter and drinker, and a devil for

the women; he not only spent what he got from the village, but all the

money he brought from Gondar into the bargain; it was a jovial time,

as I have heard; all was merriment: The first day he came there, some

of the men of Sacala, out of sport, disputing with three of the Agows

of Zeegam, fell to it with their knives and lances, and four men were

killed in an instant upon the spot; fine stout fellows, every one like

a lion; good men all of them; there are no such days seen now, unless

they come about when you are there, and then I shall have my share of

every thing”. “Woldo, said I, with all my heart; I shall be otherwise

employed; but you shall be at perfect liberty to partake of every

sport, always excepting the diversion of killing four men.” But I had

observed this day, with some surprise, that he doubted several times

whether we were on the way to the fountains of the Nile or not; and I

did not think this prospect of entertainment which I held out to him

was received with such joy as I expected, or as if he meant to partake

of it.

Strates had refused to go to the first cataract, having so violent an

appetite that he could not abandon the cow; and, after my arrival, it

was his turn to watch that night. When I was lain down to rest in a

little hovel like a hog’s sty, near where they were sitting, I heard a

warm dispute among the servants, and, upon inquiry, found Strates was

preparing steaks on a gridiron to make an entertainment for himself

while the rest were sleeping; these, on the other hand, were resolved

to play him a trick to punish his gluttony. When the steaks were spread

upon the gridiron, Woldo had undertaken to pour some fine dust, or

sand, through the hole in the roof, which served as a chimney; and this

he had done with success as often as Strates went to any distance from

the fire. Not content, however, with the position in which he then

was, but desirous to do it more effectually, he attempted to change

his place upon the roof where he stood, thinking it all equally strong

to bear him; but in this he was mistaken; the part he was removing to

suddenly gave way, and down he came upon the floor, bringing half the

roof and part of the wall, together with a prodigious dust, into the

fire.

The surprise and sight of his own danger made Woldo repeat some

ejaculation to himself in Galla. My servants, who were waiting the

success of the scheme, cried, The Galla! the Galla! and Strates, who

thought the whole army of wild Galla had surrounded the house, fell

upon his face, calling Maruni! Maruni!--Spare me! spare me!--I was in

a profound sleep when roused by the noise of the roof, the falling of

the man, and the cry of Galla! Galla! I started up, and laid hold of

a musket loaded with slugs, a bayonet at the end of it, and ran to

the door, when the first thing I saw was Woldo examining his hurts,

or burns, but without any arms. A laugh from without made me directly

suppose what it was, and I was presently fully satisfied by the figure

Strates and Woldo made, covered with dirt and dust from the roof; but,

while they were entertaining themselves with this foolish trick, the

thatch that had fallen upon the fire began to flame, and it was with

the utmost difficulty we extinguished it, otherwise the whole village

might have been burnt down.--I heard distinctly the noise of the

cataract all this night.

CHAP. XII.

_Leave Goutto--Mountains of the Moon--Roguery of Woldo our

Guide--Arrive at the Source of the Nile._

It was the 3d of November, at eight o’clock in the morning, that we

left the village of Goutto, and continued, for the first part of the

day, through a plain country full of acacia-trees, and a few of other

sorts; but they were all pollards, that is, stunted, by having their

tops cut off when young, so that they bore now nothing but small twigs,

or branches; these, too, seemed to have been lopped yearly. As there

appeared no doubt that this had been done purposely, and for use, I

asked, and was informed, that we were now in the honey country, and

that these twigs were for making large baskets, which they hung upon

trees at the sides of their houses, like bird-cages, for the bees to

make their honey in them during the dry months; all the houses we

passed afterwards, and the trees near them, were furnished with these

baskets, having numerous hives of bees at work in them; the people

themselves seemed not to heed them, but they were an excessive plague

to us by their stings during the day, so that it was only when we were

out in the fields, or at night in the house, that we were free from

this inconvenience.

The high mountain of Berfa now bore south from us about ten miles

distant; it resembles, in shape, a gunner’s wedge, and towers up to the

very clouds amidst the lesser mountains of the Agow. Sacala is south

south-east. The country of the Agows extends from Berfa on the south

to the point of due west, in form of an amphitheatre, formed all round

by mountains, of which that of Banja lies south south-west about nine

miles off. The country of the Shangalla, beyond the Agows, lies west

north-west. From this point all the territory of Goutto is full of

villages, in which the fathers, sons, and grandsons live together; each

degree, indeed, in a separate house, but near or touching each other,

as in Maitsha, so that every village consists of one family.

At three quarters past eight we crossed a small, but clear river,

called Dee-ohha, or the River Dee. It is singular to observe the

agreement of names of rivers in different parts of the world, that have

never had communication together. The Dee is a river in the north of

Scotland. The Dee runs through Cheshire likewise in England; and Dee is

a river here in Abyssinia. Kelti is the name of a river in Monteith;

Kelti, too, we found in Maitsha. Arno is a well-known river in Tuscany;

and we found another Arno, below Emfras, falling into the lake Tzana.

Not one of these rivers, as far as I could observe, resemble each other

in any one circumstance, nor have they a meaning or signification in

any one language I know.

The church of Abbo is a quarter of a mile to our right, and the church

of Eion Mariam bears east by south half a mile. We resumed our journey

at half past nine, and, after advancing a few minutes, we came in

light of the ever-memorable field of Fagitta. At a quarter past ten

we were pointing to the south-east, the two great clans of the Agow,

Zeegam and Dengui, being to the south-west; the remarkable mountain

Davenanza is about eight miles off, bearing south-east by south, and

the course of the Nile is east and west. Eastward still from this is

the high mountain of Adama, one of the ridges of Amid Amid, which form

the entrance of a narrow valley on the east side, as the mountains of

Litchambara do on the west. In this valley runs the large river Jemma,

rising in the mountains, which, after passing thro’ part of Maitsha,

falls below into the Nile. The mountains from this begin to rise high,

whereas at Samseen they are very low and inconsiderable. Adama is about

ten miles from our present situation, which is also famous for a battle

fought by Fasil’s father, while governor of Damot, against the people

of Maitsha, in which they were totally defeated.

We now descended into a large plain full of marshes, bounded on the

west by the Nile, and at ten and three quarters we crossed the small

river Diwa, which comes from the east and runs to the westward: though

not very broad, it was by much the deepest river we had passed; the

banks of earth being perpendicular and infirm, and the bottom foul and

clayey, we were obliged to dismount ourselves, unload the mules, and

carry our baggage over. This was a troublesome operation, though we

succeeded at last. I often regretted to Woldo, that he could not here

find some of the good people like the Agows at the ford of the Nile;

but he shook his head, saying, These are another sort of stuff; we may

be very thankful if they let us pass ourselves: in the flat country I

do not wish to meet one man on this side the mountain Aformasha.

In this plain, the Nile winds more in the space of four miles than,

I believe, any river in the world; it makes above a hundred turns in

that distance, one of which advances so abruptly into the plain that

we concluded we must pass it, and were preparing accordingly, when we

saw it make as sharp a turn to the right, and run far on in a contrary

direction, as if we were never to have met it again: the Nile is not

here above 20 feet broad, and is nowhere above a foot deep. The church

of Yasous was above three quarters of a mile to the west.

At one o’clock we ascended a ridge of low hills which terminates this

plain to the south. The mountains behind them are called Attata; they

are covered thick with brushwood, and are cut through with gullies and

beds of torrents. At half past one we were continuing S. E.; in a few

minutes after we passed a clear but small stream, called Minch, which

signifies the Fountain. At two o’clock we arrived at the top of the

mountain of Attata, and from this discovered the river Abola coming

from the S. S. E. and in a few minutes passed another small river

called Giddili, which loses itself immediately in a turn, or elbow,

which the river Abola makes here below. At half past two we descended

the mountain of Attata, and immediately at the foot of it crossed a

small river of the same name, which terminates the territory of Attata;

here, to the south, it is indeed narrow, but very difficult to pass

by reason of its muddy bottom. The sun all along the plain of Goutto

had been very hot till now, and here so excessively, that it quite

overcame us: what was worse, Woldo declared himself so ill, that he

doubted if he could go any farther, but believed he should die at the

next village. Though I knew too much of the matter to think him in any

danger from real disease, I saw easily that he was infected with a

counterfeit one, which I did not doubt was to give me as much trouble

as a real one would have done.

At three o’clock, however, we pushed on towards the S. E. and began to

enter into the plain of Abola, one of the divisions of the Agow. The

plain, or rather valley, of Abola, is about half a mile broad for the

most part, and nowhere exceeds a mile. The mountains that form it on

the east and west side are at first of no considerable height, and are

covered with herbage and acacia-trees to the very top; but as they run

south, they increase in height, and become more rugged and woody. On

the top of these are most delightful plains, full of excellent pasture;

the mountains to the west are part of, or at least join the mountain of

Aformasha, where, from a direction nearly S. E. they turn south, and

inclose the villages and territory of Sacala, which lie at the foot of

them, and still lower, that is more to the westward, the small village

of Geesh, where are the long-expected fountains of the Nile.

These mountains are here in the form of a crescent; the river runs

in the plain along the foot of this ridge, and along the side of it

Kasmati Fasil passed after his defeat at Fagitta. The mountains which

form the east side of this plain run parallel to the former in their

whole course, and are part of, or at least join the mountains of

Litchambara, and these two, when behind Aformasha, turn to the south,

and then to the S. W. taking the same form as they do, only making a

greater curve, and inclosing them likewise in the form of a crescent,

the extremity of which terminates immediately above the small lake

Gooderoo, in the plain of Assoa, below Geesh, and directly at the

fountains of the Nile.

The river Abola comes out of the valley between these two ridges of

mountains of Litchambara and Aformasha, but does not rise there; it

has two branches, one of which hath its source in the western side of

Litchambara, near the center of the curve where the mountains turn

south; the other branch rises on the mountain of Aformasha, and the

east side of our road as we ascended to the church of Mariam. Still

behind these are the mountains of Amid Amid, another ridge which begin

behind Samseen, in the S. W. part of the province of Maitsha, though

they become high only from the mountain of Adama, but they are in shape

exactly like the former ridges, embracing them in a large curve in the

shape of a crescent.

Between Amid Amid and the ridge of Litchambara is the deep valley now

known by the name of St George; what was its ancient, or Pagan name,

I could not learn. Through the middle of this valley runs the Jemma,

a river equal to the Nile, if not larger, but infinitely more rapid:

after leaving the valley, it crosses that part of Maitsha on the east

of the Nile, and loses itself in that river below Samseen, near the

ford where our army passed in the unfortunate retreat of the month of

May: its sources or fountains are three; they rise in the mountains of

Amid Amid, and keep on close to the east side of them, till the river

issues out of the valley into Maitsha.

This triple ridge of mountains disposed one range behind the other,

nearly in form of three concentric circles, seem to suggest an idea

that they are the Mountains of the Moon, or the _Montes Lunæ_ of

antiquity, at the foot of which the Nile was said to rise; in fact,

there are no others. Amid Amid may perhaps exceed half a mile in

height, they certainly do not arrive at three quarters, and are greatly

short of that fabulous height given them by Kircher. These mountains

are all of them excellent soil, and everywhere covered with fine

pasture; but as this unfortunate country had been for ages the theatre

of war, the inhabitants have only ploughed and sown the top of them

out of the reach of enemies or marching armies. On the middle of the

mountain are villages built of a white sort of grass, which makes them

conspicuous at a great distance; the bottom is all grass, where their

cattle feed continually under their eye; these, upon any alarm, they

drive up to the top of the mountains out of danger. The hail lies often

upon the top of Amid Amid for hours, but snow was never seen in this

country, nor have they a word[122] in their language for it. It is also

remarkable, though we had often violent hail at Gondar, and even when

the sun was vertical, it never came but with the wind blowing directly

from Amid Amid.

At ten minutes past three o’clock we crossed the small river Iworra,

in the valley of Abola; it comes from the east, and runs westward

into that river. At a quarter after four we halted at a house in

the middle of the plain, or valley. This valley is not above a mile

broad, the river being distant about a quarter, and runs at the foot

of the mountains. This village, as indeed were all the others we

had seen since our crossing the Nile at Goutto, was surrounded by

large, thick plantations, of that singular plant the Ensete, one of

the most beautiful productions of nature, as well as most agreeable

and wholesome food of man. It is said to have been brought by the

Galla from Narea, first to Maitsha, then to Goutto, the Agows, and

Damot, which last is a province on the south side of the mountains of

Amid Amid. This plant, and the root, called Denitch, (the same which

is known in Europe by the name of the Jerusalem artichoke, a root

deserving more attention than is paid to it in our country,) supply all

these provinces with food.

We were but seldom lucky enough to get the people of the villages

to wait our arrival; the fears of the march of the Galla, and the

uncertainty of their destination, made them believe always we were

detachments of that army, to which the presence of Fasil’s horse driven

constantly before us very much contributed: we found the village where

we alighted totally abandoned, and in it only an earthen pot, with a

large slice of the Ensete plant boiling in it; it was about a foot in

length, and ten inches broad, and was almost ready for eating: we had

fortunately meat with us, and only wanting vegetables to complete our

dinner. We appropriated to ourselves, without scruple, this ensete;

and, by way of reparation, I insisted upon leaving, at parting, a

brick, or wedge of salt, which is used as small money in Gondar, and

all over Abyssinia; it might be in value about a shilling.

On the 4th of November, at eight o’clock we left our small village

on the plain of Abola, without having seen any of the inhabitants;

however, we were sure there were among them some who were curious

enough to wish to look at us, for, in walking late at night, I heard

several voices speaking low among the ensete-trees and canes. It was

not possible to collect what they said in the low tone in which they

spoke; and I should not probably have been much wiser, had they spoken

louder, as their language was that of their country, the Agow, of which

I did not understand one word; however, I thought I could distinguish

they were women, the men apprehending we were enemies having probably

taken refuge in the mountains above. I did every thing possible to

surround or surprise one or two of these people, that, by good-usage

and presents, we might reconcile them to us, and get the better of

their fear; but it was all to no purpose; they fled much quicker than

we could pursue them, as they knew the country, and it was not safe to

follow them far into the wilderness, lest we might stumble upon people

who might misinterpret our intentions.

I was determined to try whether, by taking away that scare-crow,

Fasil’s horse, from before us, and riding him myself, things would

change for the better: this I distinctly saw, that Woldo would have

wished the horse to have gone rather without a rider, and this I had

observed the night I went to the cataract from Goutto. Sitting on the

king’s saddle, or in his seat at Gondar, is high-treason; and Woldo

thought, at all times, but now especially, that his master was inferior

to no king upon earth. I even attributed to that last expedition at

Goutto his silence and apparent sickness ever since; but in this last

circumstance I found afterwards that I was mistaken: be that as it

would, my plan was very different from Woldo’s as to the horse, he was

become a favourite, and I was resolved, in the course of my journey, to

improve his talents so, that he should make a better appearance on his

return to Gondar, than he did when I received him from Fasil at Bamba.

I compounded, as I conceived, with Woldo’s scruples, by laying aside

Fasil’s saddle, which was a very uneasy one, besides, that it had iron

rings instead of stirrups; in short, as this horse was very beautiful,

(as many of the Galla horses are) and all of one colour, which was of

lead, without any spot of white, I hoped to make him an acceptable

present to the king, who was passionately fond of horses. Here it

may not be improper to observe, that all very great men in Abyssinia

choose to ride horses of one colour only, which have no distinguishing

mark whereby they may be traced in retreats, flights, or such unlucky

expeditions: It is the king alone in battle who rides upon a horse

distinguished by his marks, and that on purpose that he may be known.

There were many villages in this valley which seemed to have escaped

the havock of war, nor had they that air of poverty and misery so

apparent in all the other habitations we had seen. We were pointing

nearly east south-east, when we passed the small river Googueri,

which, like all the others on this side of the mountain, falls into

the Abola. We then left the valley of Abola on our right, and began

to travel along the sides of the mountains on the west. At three

quarters after eight we passed a violent torrent called Karnachiuli,

which falls from north-east into the Abola. At nine we again descended

into the valley, and, a few minutes after, came to the banks of the

Caccino, which flows from the north just above, and joins the Abola.

Here we halted for a little to rest our men, and to adjust thoroughly

the minutes of our journey, that the whole might appear in a distinct

manner in the map that I intended to make on my return to Gondar.

At half past nine we again set out, and, a few minutes after, passed

the river Abola, which gives its name to the valley into which we had

descended, and receives many lesser streams, and is of considerable

breadth. I could discover no traces of fish either in it or in any

river since we left the Assar, from which circumstance I apprehend,

that, in these torrents from the mountains, almost dry in summer, and

which run with vast rapidity in winter, the spawn and fish are both

destroyed in different seasons by different causes.

After coasting some little time along the side of the valley, we

began to ascend a mountain on the right, from which falls almost

perpendicularly a small, but very violent stream, one of the principal

branches of the Abola, which empties itself into the Nile, together

with the other branch, a still more considerable stream, coming from

east south-east along the valley between Litchambara and Aformasha.

At eleven o’clock our course was south by east, and we passed near

a church, dedicated to the Virgin, on our left. The climate seemed

here most agreeably mild, the country covered with the most lively

verdure, the mountains with beautiful trees and shrubs, loaded with

extraordinary fruits and flowers. I found my spirits very much raised

with these pleasing scenes, as were those of all my servants, who were,

by our conversation, made geographers enough to know we were near

approaching to the end of our journey. Both Strates and I, out of the

_Lamb’s_ hearing, had shot a variety of curious birds and beasts. All

but Woldo seemed to have acquired new strength and vigour. He continued

in his air of despondency, and seemed every day to grow more and more

weak. At a quarter past eleven we arrived at the top of the mountain,

where we, for the first time, came in sight of Sacala, which extends in

the plain below from west to the point of south, and there joins with

the village of Geesh.

Sacala, full of small low villages, which, however, had escaped the

ravages of the late war, is the eastermost branch of the Agows, and

famous for the best honey. The small river Kebezza, running from the

east, serves as a boundary between Sacala and Aformasha; after joining

two other rivers, the Gometti and the Googueri, which we presently came

to, after a short course nearly from S. E. to N. W. it falls into the

Nile a little above its junction with the Abola.

At three-quarters past eleven we crossed the river Kebezza, and

descended into the plain of Sacala; in a few minutes we also passed the

Googueri, a more considerable stream than the former; it is about sixty

feet broad, and perhaps eighteen inches deep, very clear and rapid,

running over a rugged, uneven bottom of black rock. At a quarter

past twelve we halted on a small eminence, where the market of Sacala

is held every Saturday. Horned cattle, many of the greatest beauty

possible, with which all this country abounds; large asses, the most

useful of all beasts for riding or carriage; honey, butter, ensete

for food, and a manufacture of the leaf of that plant, painted with

different colours like Mosaic work, are here exposed to sale in great

plenty; the butter and honey, indeed, are chiefly carried to Gondar,

or to Buré; but Damot, Maitsha, and Gojam likewise take a considerable

quantity of all these commodities.

At a quarter after one o’clock we passed the river Gumetti, the

boundary of the plain: we were now ascending a very steep and rugged

mountain, the worst pass we had met on our whole journey. We had no

other path but a road made by the sheep or the goats, which did not

seem to have been frequented by men, for it was broken, full of holes,

and in other places obstructed with large stones that seemed to have

been there from the creation. It must be added to this, that the whole

was covered with thick wood, which often occupied the very edge of

the precipices on which we stood, and we were everywhere stopt and

entangled by that execrable thorn the kantussa, and several other

thorns and brambles nearly as inconvenient. We ascended, however, with

great alacrity, as we conceived we were surmounting the last difficulty

after the many thousands we had already overcome. Just above this

almost impenetrable wood, in a very romantic situation, stands St

Michael, in a hollow space like a nitch between two hills of the same

height, and from which it is equally distant. This church has been

unfrequented for many years; the excuse they make is, that they cannot

procure frankincense, without which, it seems, their mass or service

cannot be celebrated; but the truth is, they are still Pagans; and the

church, having been built in memory of a victory over them above a

hundred years ago, is not a favourite object before their eyes, but a

memorial of their inferiority and misfortune. This church is called St

Michael Sacala, to distinguish it from another more to the southward,

called St Michael Geesh.

At three quarters after one we arrived at the top of the mountain,

whence we had a distinct view of all the remaining territory of Sacala,

the mountain Geesh, and church of St Michael Geesh, about a mile and

a half distant from St Michael Sacala, where we then were. We saw,

immediately below us, the Nile itself, strangely diminished in size,

and now only a brook that had scarcely water to turn a mill. I could

not satiate myself with the sight, revolving in my mind all those

classical prophecies that had given the Nile up to perpetual obscurity

and concealment. The lines of the poet came immediately into my mind,

and I enjoyed here, for the first time, the triumph which already, by

the protection of Providence, and my own intrepidity, I had gained over

all that were powerful, and all that were learned, since the remotest

antiquity:--

_Arcanum natura caput non prodidit ulli,

Nec licuit populis parvum te, Nile, videre;

Amovitque sinus, et gentes maluit ortus

Mirari, quam nôsse tuos._----

LUCAN.

I was awakened out of this delightful reverie by an alarm that we

had lost Woldo our guide. Though I long had expected something from

his behaviour, I did not think, for his own sake, it could be his

intention to leave us. The servants could not agree when they last

saw him: Strates and Aylo’s servant were in the wood shooting, and we

found by the gun that they were not far from us; I was therefore in

hopes that Woldo, though not at all fond of fire-arms, might be in

their company; but it was with great dissatisfaction I saw them appear

without him. They said, that, about an hour before, they had seen

some extraordinary large, rough apes, or monkeys, several of which

were walking upright, and all without tails; that they had gone after

them thro’ the wood till they could scarce get out again; but they

did not remember to have seen Woldo at parting. Various conjectures

immediately followed; some thought he had resolved to betray and rob

us; some conceived it was an instruction of Fasil’s to him, in order

to our being treacherously murdered; some again supposed he was slain

by the wild beasts, especially those apes or baboons, whose voracity,

size, and fierce appearance were exceedingly magnified, especially by

Strates, who had not the least doubt, if Woldo had met them, but that

he would be so entirely devoured, that we might seek in vain without

discovering even a fragment of him. For my part, I began to think that

he had been really ill when he first complained, and that the sickness

might have overcome him upon the road; and this, too, was the opinion

of Ayto Aylo’s servant, who said, however, with a significant look,

that he could not be far off; we therefore sent him, and one of the men

that drove the mules, back to seek after him; and they had not gone

but a few hundred yards when they found him coming, but so decrepid,

and so very ill, that he said he could go no farther than the church,

where he was positively resolved to take up his abode that night. I

felt his pulse, examined every part about him, and saw, I thought

evidently, that nothing ailed him. Without losing my temper, however,

I told him firmly, That I perceived he was an impostor; that he should

consider that I was a physician, as he knew I cured his master’s first

friend, Welleta Yasous: that the feeling of his hand told me as plain

as his tongue could have done, that nothing ailed him; that it told

me likewise he had in his heart some prank to play, which would turn

out very much to his disadvantage. He seemed dismayed after this, said

little, and only desired us to halt for a few minutes, and he should be

better; for, says he, it requires strength in us all to pass another

great hill before we arrive at Geesh.

“Look you, said I, lying is to no purpose; I know where Geesh is as

well as you do, and that we have no more mountains or bad places to

pass through; therefore, if you choose to stay behind, you may; but

to-morrow I shall inform Welleta Yasous at Buré of your behaviour.”

I said this with the most determined air possible, and left them,

walking as hard as I could down to the ford of the Nile. Woldo remained

above with the servants, who were loading their mules; he seemed to be

perfectly cured of his lameness, and was in close conversation with

Ayto Aylo’s servant for about ten minutes, which I did not choose to

interrupt, as I saw that man was already in possession of part of

Woldo’s secret. This being over, they all came down to me, as I was

sketching a branch of a yellow rose-tree, a number of which hang over

the ford.

The whole company passed without disturbing me; and Woldo, seeming to

walk as well as ever, ascended a gentle-rising hill, near the top of

which is St Michael Geesh. The Nile here is not four yards over, and

not above four inches deep where we crossed; it was indeed become a

very trifling brook, but ran swiftly over a bottom of small stones,

with hard, black rock appearing amidst them: it is at this place

very easy to pass, and very limpid, but, a little lower, full of

inconsiderable falls; the ground rises gently from the river to the

southward, full of small hills and eminences, which you ascend and

descend almost imperceptibly. The whole company had halted on the north

side of St Michael’s church, and there I reached them without affecting

any hurry.

It was about four o’clock in the afternoon, but the day had been very

hot for some hours, and they were sitting in the shade of a grove of

magnificent cedars, intermixed with some very large and beautiful

cusso-trees, all in the flower; the men were lying on the grass, and

the beasts fed, with the burdens on their backs, in most luxuriant

herbage. I called for my herbary[123], to lay the rose-branch I had in

my hand smoothly, that it might dry without spoiling the shape; having

only drawn its general form, the pistil and stamina, the finer parts of

which (though very necessary in classing the plant) crumble and fall

off, or take different forms in drying, and therefore should always be

secured by drawing while green. I just said indifferently to Woldo in

passing, that I was glad to see him recovered; that he would presently

be well, and should fear nothing. He then got up, and desired to

speak with me alone, taking Aylo’s servant along with him. “Now, said

I, very calmly, I know by your face you are going to tell me a lie. I

do swear to you solemnly, you never, by that means, will obtain any

thing from me, no not so much as a good word; truth and good behaviour

will get you every thing; what appears a great matter in your sight is

not perhaps of such value in mine; but nothing except truth and good

behaviour will answer to you; now I know for a certainty you are no

more sick than I am.”--“Sir, said he, with a very confident look, you

are right; I did counterfeit; I neither have been, nor am I at present

any way out of order; but I thought it best to tell you so, not to be

obliged to discover another reason that has much more weight with me

why I cannot go to Geesh, and much less shew myself at the sources of

the Nile, which I confess are not much beyond it, though I declare to

you there is still a _hill_ between you and those sources.”--“And pray,

said I calmly, what is this mighty reason? have you had a dream, or a

vision in that trance you fell into when you lagged behind below the

church of St Michael Sacala?” “No, says he, it is neither trance, nor

dream, nor devil either; I wish it was no worse; but you know as well

as I, that my master Fasil defeated the Agows at the battle of Banja.

I was there with my master, and killed several men, among whom some

were of the Agows of this village Geesh, and you know the usage of this

country, when a man, in these circumstances, falls into their hands,

his blood must pay for their blood.”

I burst out into a violent fit of laughter which very much disconcerted

him. “There, said I, did not I say to you it was a lie that you was

going to tell me? do not think I disbelieve or dispute with you the

vanity of having killed men; many men were slain at that battle;

somebody must, and you may have been the person who slew them; but do

you think that I can believe that Fasil, so deep in that account of

blood, could rule the Agows in the manner he does, if he could not put

a servant of his in safety among them 20 miles from his residence;

do you think I can believe this?” “Come, come, said Aylo’s servant

to Woldo, did you not hear that truth and good behaviour will get

you every thing you ask? Sir, continues he, I see this affair vexes

you, and what this foolish man wants will neither make you richer nor

poorer; he has taken a great desire for that crimson silk-sash which

you wear about your middle. I told him to stay till you went back to

Gondar; but he says he is to go no farther than to the house of Shalaka

Welled Amlac in Maitsha, and does not return to Gondar; I told him to

stay till you had put your mind at ease, by seeing the fountains of the

Nile, which you are so anxious about. He said, after that had happened,

he was sure you would not give it him, for you seemed to think little

of the cataract at Goutto, and of all the fine rivers and churches

which he had shewn you; except the head of the Nile shall be finer than

all these, when, in reality, it will be just like another river, you

will then be dissatisfied, and not give him the sash.”

I thought there was something very natural in these suspicions of

Woldo; besides, he said he was certain that, if ever the sash came into

the sight of Welled Amlac, by some means or other he would get it into

his hands. This rational discourse had pacified me a little; the sash

was a handsome one; but it must have been fine indeed to have stood

for a minute between me and the accomplishment of my wishes. I laid

my hand then upon the pistols that stuck in my girdle, and drew them

out to give them to one of my suite, when Woldo, who apprehended it was

for another purpose, ran some paces back, and hid himself behind Aylo’s

servant. We were all diverted at this fright, but none so much as

Strates, who thought himself revenged for the alarm he had given him by

falling through the roof of the house at Goutto. After having taken off

my sash, “Here is your sash, Woldo, said I; but mark what I have said,

and now most seriously repeat to you, Truth and good behaviour will get

any thing from me; but if, in the course of this journey, you play one

trick more, though ever so trifling, I will bring such a vengeance upon

your head that you shall not be able to find a place to hide it in,

when not the sash only will be taken from you, but your skin also will

follow it: remember what happened to the seis at Bamba.”

He took the sash, but seemed terrified at the threat, and began to

make apologies. “Come, come, said I, we understand each other; no more

words; it is now late, lose no more time, but carry me to Geesh, and

the head of the Nile directly, without preamble, and shew me the hill

that separates me from it. He then carried me round to the south side

of the church, out of the grove of trees that surrounded it, “This is

the hill, says he, looking archly, that, when you was on the other

side of it, was between you and the fountains of the Nile; there is no

other; look at that hillock of green sod in the middle of that watery

spot, it is in that the two fountains of the Nile are to be found:

Geesh is on the face of the rock where yon green trees are: if you go

the length of the fountains pull off your shoes as you did the other

day, for these people are all Pagans, worse than those that were at

the ford, and they believe in nothing that you believe, but only in

this river, to which they pray every day as if it were God; but this

perhaps you may do likewise.” Half undressed as I was by loss of my

sash, and throwing my shoes off, I ran down the hill towards the little

island of green sods, which was about two hundred yards distant; the

whole side of the hill was thick grown over with flowers, the large

bulbous roots of which appearing above the surface of the ground, and

their skins coming off on treading upon them, occasioned two very

severe falls before I reached the brink of the marsh; I after this came

to the island of green turf, which was in form of an altar, apparently

the work of art, and I stood in rapture over the principal fountain

which rises in the middle of it.”

It is easier to guess than to describe the situation of my mind at that

moment--standing in that spot which had baffled the genius, industry,

and inquiry of both ancients and moderns, for the course of near three

thousand years. Kings had attempted this discovery at the head of

armies, and each expedition was distinguished from the last, only by

the difference of the numbers which had perished, and agreed alone in

the disappointment which had uniformly, and without exception, followed

them all. Fame, riches, and honour, had been held out for a series of

ages to every individual of those myriads these princes commanded,

without having produced one man capable of gratifying the curiosity

of his sovereign, or wiping off this stain upon the enterprise and

abilities of mankind, or adding this desideratum for the encouragement

of geography. Though a mere private Briton, I triumphed here, in my own

mind, over kings and their armies; and every comparison was leading

nearer and nearer to presumption, when the place itself where I stood,

the object of my vain-glory, suggested what depressed my short-lived

triumphs. I was but a few minutes arrived at the sources of the Nile,

through numberless dangers and sufferings, the least of which would

have overwhelmed me but for the continual goodness and protection of

Providence; I was, however, but then half through my journey, and

all those dangers which I had already passed, awaited me again on my

return. I found a despondency gaining ground fast upon me, and blasting

the crown of laurels I had too rashly woven for myself. I resolved

therefore to divert, till I could on more solid reflection overcome its

progress.

I saw Strates expecting me on the side of the hill. “Strates, said I,

faithful squire, come and triumph with your Don Quixote at that island

of Barataria where we have wisely and fortunately brought ourselves;

come and triumph with me over all the kings of the earth, all their

armies, all their philosophers, and all their heroes.”--“Sir, says

Strates, I do not understand a word of what you say, and as little what

you mean: you very well know I am no scholar; but you had much better

leave that bog, come into the house, and look after Woldo; I fear he

has something further to seek than your sash, for he has been talking

with the old devil-worshipper ever since we arrived.”--“Did they speak

secretly together, said I?”--“Yes, Sir, they did, I assure you.”--“And

in whispers, Strates!”--“As for that, replied he, they need not have

been at the pains; they understand one another, I suppose, and the

devil their master understands them both; but as for me I comprehend

their discourse no more than if it was Greek, _as they say_. Greek!

says he, I am an ass; I should know well enough what they said if they

spoke Greek.”--“Come, said I, take a draught of this excellent water,

and drink with me a health to his majesty king George III. and a long

line of princes.” I had in my hand a large cup made of a cocoa-nut

shell, which I procured in Arabia, and which was brim-full. He drank

to the king speedily and chearfully, with the addition of, “Confusion

to his enemies,” and tossed up his cap with a loud huzza. “Now friend,

said I, here is to a more humble, but still a sacred name, here is

to--Maria!” He asked if that was the Virgin Mary? I answered, “In

faith, I believe so, Strates.” He did not speak, but only gave a humph

of disapprobation.

The day had been very hot, and the altercation I had with Woldo had

occasioned me to speak so much that my thirst, without any help from

curiosity, led me to these frequent libations at this long sought-for

spring, the most ancient of all altars. “Strates, said I, here is to

our happy return. Come, friend, you are yet two toasts behind me; can

you ever be satiated with this excellent water?”--“Look you, Sir,

says he very gravely, as for king George I. drank to him with all my

heart, to his wife, to his children, to his brothers and sisters, God

bless them all! Amen;--but as for the Virgin Mary, as I am no Papist,

I beg to be excused from drinking healths which _my church_ does not

drink. As for our happy return, God knows, there is no one wishes it

more sincerely than I do, for I have been long weary of this beggarly

country. But you must forgive me if I refuse to drink any more water.

They say these savages pray over that hole every morning to the devil,

and I am afraid I feel his horns in my belly already, from the great

draught of that hellish water I drank first.”--It was, indeed, as

cold water as ever I tasted. “Come, come, said I, don’t be peevish, I

have but one toast more to drink.”--“Peevish, or not peevish, replied

Strates, a drop of it never again shall cross my throat: there is no

humour in this; no joke; shew us something pleasant as you used to do;

but there is no jest in meddling with devil-worshippers, witchcraft,

and inchantments, to bring some disease upon one’s self here, so far

from home in the fields. No, no, as many toasts in wine as you please,

or better in brandy, but no more water for Strates. I am sure I have

done myself harm already with these follies--God forgive me!”--“Then,

said I, I will drink it alone, and you are henceforward unworthy of the

name of Greek; you do not even deserve that of a Christian.” Holding

the full cup then to my head, “Here is to Catharine, empress of all the

Russias, and success to her heroes at Paros; and hear my prediction

from this altar to-day, Ages shall not pass, before this ground,

whereon I now stand, will become a flourishing part of her dominions.”

He leaped on this a yard from the ground. “If the old gentleman has

whispered you this, says he, out of the well, he has not kept you long

time waiting; tell truth and shame the devil, is indeed the proverb,

but truth is truth, wherever it comes from; give me the cup, I will

drink that health though I should die.” He then held out both his

hands. “Strates, said I, be in no such haste; remember the water is

inchanted by devil-worshippers; there is no jesting with these, and

you are far from home, and in the fields, you may catch some disease,

especially if you drink the Virgin Mary; God forgive you. Remember the

horns the first draught produced; they may with this come entirely

through and through.”--“The cup, the cup, says he, and--fill it full;

I defy the devil, and trust in St George and the dragon.--Here is to

Catharine, empress of all the Russias, confusion to her enemies, and

damnation to all at Paros.”--“Well, friend, said I, you was long in

resolving, but you have done it at last to some purpose; I am sure

I did not drink damnation to all at Paros.”--“Ah, says he, but _I

did_, and will do it again--Damnation to all at Paros, and Cyprus,

and Rhodes, Crete, and Mytilene into the bargain: Here it goes, with

all my heart. Amen, so be it.”--“And who do you think, said I, are at

Paros?”--“Pray, who should be there, says he, but Turks and devils, the

worst race of monsters and oppressors in the Levant; I have been at

Paros myself; was you ever there?”--“Whether I was ever there or not

is no matter, said I; the empress’s fleet, and an army of Russians,

are now possibly there; and here you, without provocation, have drank

damnation to the Russian fleet and army who have come so far from home,

and are at this moment sword in hand to restore you to your liberty,

and the free exercise of your religion; did not I tell you, you was no

Greek, and scarcely deserved the name of Christian?”--“No, no, Sir,

cries Strates, for God’s sake do not say so, I would rather die. I

did not understand you about Paros; there was no malice in my heart

against the Russians. God will bless them, and my folly can do them no

harm--Huzza, Catharine, and victory!” whilst he tossed his cap into the

air.

A number of the Agows had appeared upon the hill, just before the

valley, in silent wonder what Strates and I were doing at the altar.

Two or three only had come down to the edge of the swamp, had seen the

grimaces and action of Strates, and heard him huzza; on which they

had asked Woldo, as he entered into the village, what was the meaning

of all this? Woldo told them, that the man was out of his senses, and

had been bit by a mad dog; which reconciled them immediately to us.

They, moreover, said, he would be infallibly cured by the Nile; but the

custom, after meeting with such a misfortune, was to drink the water in

the morning fasting. I was very well pleased both with this turn Woldo

gave the action, and the remedy we stumbled upon by mere accident,

which discovered a connection, believed to subsist at this day, between

this river and its ancient governor the dog-star.

CHAP. XIII.

_Attempts of the Ancients to discover the Source of the Nile--No

Discovery made in latter Times--No Evidence of the Jesuits having

arrived there--Kircher’s Account fabulous--Discovery completely made by

the Author._

Far in antiquity as history or tradition can lead us, farther still

beyond the reach of either, (if we believe it was the first subject of

hieroglyphics) begins the inquiry into the origin, cause of increase,

and course, of this famous river. It is one of the few phænomena

in natural history that ancient philosophers employed themselves

in investigating, and people of all ranks seemed to have joined in

the research with a degree of perseverance very uncommon; but still

this discovery, though often attempted under the most favourable

circumstances, has as constantly miscarried; it has baffled the

endeavours of all ages, and at last come down, as great a secret as

ever, to these latter times of bold and impartial inquiry.

Though Egypt was not created by the Nile, it was the first part that

received benefit from it; it was there, in the time of its overflowing,

that it appeared in all its beauty, and Egypt measured its prosperity

or desolation by the abundance or scantiness of this stream. It was

not, however, in Egypt the inquiries into the time and cause of its

inundation began; all these were settled and reduced to rule before a

city was built within the reach of the inundation.

Man, that knew not the cause, was also ignorant of the limits of that

inundation, having only in his mind a tradition of deluges that had

destroyed the earth, traces of which appeared on every hill. He was

with reason astonished to see, that, wild and wide as the torrent

appeared, it was subject to the controul of some power that prohibited

it from irregularity in the time of its coming, and forbade it to

destroy the land it was destined to enrich; they saw it subside within

its banks, and overflow no more after it had afforded to husbandry the

utmost advantage it could receive. But what the controuling power was

they knew not, consequently could never divine whether this regularity

was transitory or perpetual; whether it was not liable, at some time,

to break its bonds, and sweep both man and his labours together into

the ocean.

Whether the Nile was constant to its time of rising, whether it did

not revolve in some cycle or period, or whether, arrived at a certain

number of inundations, it was not to stop and overflow no more, was

what could only be determined by the investigation of the cause, and

the observations of a series of years. Before this was thoroughly

settled and known, the farmer might perhaps cultivate the plain of

Egypt, but would not build there; he would fix his dwelling on the

mountain in defiance of the flood; and that this was so, is evident

from what we saw at Thebes, which the Aborigines did not build, as we

see thousands of caves dug out of solid rock that were the dwellings of

the first inhabitants, the Troglodytes, beyond Meroë.

The philosophers of _Meroë_ seem therefore to have been the first that

undertook the compiling a series of observations, which should teach

their posterity the proper times in which they could settle in, and

cultivate Egypt, without fear of danger from the Nile. That island,

full of flocks and shepherds, under a sky perpetually cloudless,

having a twilight of short duration, was placed between the Nile and

Astaboras, where the two rivers collect the waters that fall in the

east and the west of Ethiopia, and mix together in a latitude where

the tropical rains cease; this land was too high to be overflowed by

the Nile, but near enough to behold every alteration in that river’s

increase from the instant it happened.

Sirius, the brightest star in the Heavens, probably the largest,

perhaps the nearest to us, in either case the most obvious and useful

for the present purpose, was immediately vertical to Meroë; and it

did not long escape observation, that the heliacal rising of the

dog-star was found to be the instant when all Egypt was to prepare

for the reception of a stranger-flood, without which the husbandman’s

labour and expectation of harvest were in vain. The fields were dusty

and desert, the farms without tenants, the tenants without feed, the

houses perhaps situated in the middle of the inundation, when, at a

stated time, this most brilliant sign shone forth to warn the master to

procure a peasant for his field, the peasant to procure feed for his

tenement, and the stranger to remove his habitation from a situation

soon destined to be laid wholly under water.

Nothing could be more natural than the inquiries how the encrease of

the flood was thus connected with the rising of the dog-star; many

useful discoveries were therefore probably made in search after this,

but the cause of the inundation remained still undiscovered; at last

the effects being found regular, and the efficient cause inscrutable,

no wonder if gratitude transferred to the star a portion of respect

for the benefits they were persuaded they received from its influence.

Though these observations were such as concerned Egypt and Nubia alone,

yet from Egypt they passed as objects proper for inquiry, as problems

of the greatest consequence to philosophers, and as phænomena worthy

the attention of all that studied nature.

A great step towards the accounting for these phænomena was believed

to be the discovery of the Nile’s source, and this, as it was attended

with very considerable difficulties, was thought therefore to be a

proper object of investigation, even by kings, who discovered nations

by conquering them, and by their power, revenue, and armies, removed

most of those obstacles which, succeeding each others in detail, weary

the diligence, overcome the courage, and baffle the endeavours of the

most intrepid and persevering travellers.

Sesostris, one of the earliest and greatest conquerors of antiquity,

is mentioned, amidst all his victories, earnestly to have desired to

penetrate to the head of the Nile, as a glory he preferred to almost

universal monarchy:--

_Venit ad occasum, mundique extrema Sesostris,

Et Pharios currus regum cervicibus egit:

Antè tamen vestros amnes Rhodanúmque, Padúmque,

Quàm Nilum de fonte bibit._----

LUCAN.

Cambyses’ attempt to penetrate into Ethiopia, and the defeat of his

schemes, I have already narrated at sufficient length[124].

----_Vesanus in ortus

Cambyses longi populos pervenit ad œvi,

Defectusque epulis, & pastus cœde suorum

Ignoto te, Nile, redit._----

LUCAN.

The attention paid by Alexander, the next prince who attempted an

expedition towards these unknown fountains, merits a little more of

our consideration. After he had conquered Egypt, and was arrived at

the temple of Jupiter Ammon, (the celebrated and ancient deity of

the shepherds) in the Theban desert, the first question he asked was

concerning the spot where the Nile rose. Having received from the

priests sufficient directions for attempting the discovery, he is said,

as the next very sensible step, to have chosen natives of Ethiopia as

the likeliest people to succeed in the search he had commanded them to

make:--

_Summus Alexander regum, quem Memphis ador at,

Invidit Nilo, misitque per ultima terræ

Æthiopum lectos: illos rubicunda perusti

Zona poli tenuit, Nilum videre calentem._

LUCAN.

These Ethiopians, parting from their temple in the desert of Elvah, or

Oasis, or, which will come to the same thing, from the banks of the

Nile, or Thebes, would hold nearly the same course as Poncet had done,

till they fell in with the Nile about Moscho in the kingdom of Dongola;

they would continue the same route till they came to Halfaia, where

the Bahar el Abiad (or white river) joins the Nile at Hojila, five

miles above that town; and, to avoid the mountains of Kuara, they would

continue on the west side of the Nile, between it and the Bahar el

Abiad; and, keeping the Nile close on their left, they would follow its

direction south to the mountains of Fazuclo, through countries where

its course must necessarily be known. After having passed the great

chain of mountains, called Dyre and Tegla, between lat. 11° and 12° N.

where are the great cataracts, they again came into the flat country of

the Gongas, as far as Bizamo, nearly in 9° N. there the river, leaving

its hitherto constant direction, N. and S. turns due E. and surrounds

Gojam.

It is probable the discoverers, always looking for it to the south,

took this unusual sudden turn east to be only a winding of the river,

which would soon be compensated by an equal return to the west where

they would meet it again; they therefore continued their journey south,

till near the line, and never saw it more, as they could have no

possible notion it had turned back behind them, and that they had left

it as far north as lat. 11° They reported then to Alexander what was

truth, that they had ascended the Nile as far south as lat. 9°, where

it unexpectedly took its course to the east, and was seen no more. The

river, moreover, was not known, nor to be heard of near the Line, or

farther southward, nor was it diminished in size, nor had it given any

symptom they were near its source; they had found the Nile _calentem_,

(warm) while they expected its rise among melting snows.

This discovery (for so far it was one) of the course of the river to

the east, seems to have made a strong impression on Alexander’s mind,

so that when he arrived at near the head of the Indus, then swelled

with the thawing snows of mount Caucasus, and overflowing in summer,

he thought he was arrived at the source of this famous river the Nile

which he had before seen in the west, and rejoiced at it exceedingly,

as the noblest of his atchievements[125]; he immediately wrote to

acquaint his mother of it; but being soon convinced of his error, and

being far above propagating a falsehood, even for his own glory, he

instantly erased what he had wrote upon that subject. This however

did not entirely dissatisfy Alexander, for he proposed an expedition

in person towards these fountains, if he had returned from India in

safety.

----_Non illi flamma, nec undæ,

Nec sterilis Libye, nec Syrticus obstitit Ammon.

Isset in occasus, mundi devexa secutus:

Ambissetque polos, Nilumque a fonte bibisset:

Occurrit suprema dies, naturaque solum

Hunc potuit finem vesano ponere regi._

LUCAN.

It must no doubt seem preposterous to those that are not very

conversant with the classics, that a prince so well instructed as

Alexander himself was, who had with him in his army many philosophers,

geographers, and astronomers, and was in constant correspondence with

Aristotle, a man of almost universal knowledge, that, after having

seen the Nile in Egypt coming from the south, he should think he was

arrived at the head of it while on the banks of the Indus, so far to

the N. E. of its Ethiopian course. This difficulty, however, has a

very easy solution in the prejudices of those times. The ancients were

incorrigible as to their error in opinion concerning two seas.

The Caspian Sea they had sailed through in several directions, and had

almost marched round it; and whilst they conquered kingdoms between

it and the sea, its water was sweet, it neither ebbed nor flowed, and

yet they most ridiculously would have it to be part of the ocean. On

the other hand, they obstinately persisted in believing that, from the

east coast of Africa, about latitude 15° south, a neck of land ran

east and north-east, and joined the peninsula of India, and by that

means made this part of the ocean a lake. In vain ships of different

nations sailed for ages to Sofala, and saw no such land; this only

made them remove the neck of land further to the south; and though

Eudoxus had sailed from the Red Sea around the Cape of Good Hope, which

must have totally destroyed the possibility of the existence of that

land supposed to join the two continents, rather than allow this, they

neglected the information of this navigator, and treated it as a fable.

It was the constant opinion of the Greeks, that no river could rise

in the torrid zone, as also, that the melting of snow was the cause

of the overflowing of all rivers in the heat of summer, and so of

the Nile among the rest; when, therefore, Alexander heard from his

discoverers, that the Nile, about latitude 9°, ran straight to the

east, and returned no more, he imagined the river’s course was eastward

through the imaginary neck of land inclosing the imaginary lake, and

joining the peninsula of India, and that the river, after it had

crossed, continued north till it came within reach of the thawing of

the snows of Mount Caucasus; and this was also the opinion of Ptolemy

the geographer.

Ptolemy Philadelphus, the second of those princes who had succeeded

to the throne of Alexander in Egypt, was the next who marched into

Ethiopia with an army against the Shangalla. His object was not only to

discover the source of the Nile, but also to procure a perpetual supply

of elephants to enable him to cope with the kings of Syria. The success

of this expedition we have related in the first volume, book ii. chap.

v.

Ptolemy Evergetes, his successor, in the 27th year of his reign, being

in peace with all his neighbours, undertook an expedition to Ethiopia.

His design was certainly to discover the fountains of the Nile, in

which he had probably succeeded had he not mistaken the river itself.

He supposed the Siris, now the Tacazzé, was the Nile, and, ascending

in the direction of its stream, he came to Axum, the capital of the

province of Siré and of Ethiopia. But the story he tells about the snow

which he found knee-deep on the mountains of Samen, makes me question

whether he ever crossed the Siris, or was himself an ocular witness of

what he says he observed there.

Cæsar, between the acquisition of a rich and powerful kingdom, and the

enjoyment of the finest woman in the world, the queen of it, is said

to have employed so interesting an interval in a calm inquiry after

the source of this river, and, in so doing at such a time, surely has

paid it a greater compliment than it ever yet received from any that

attempted the discovery. On that night, which completed the destruction

of the Egyptian monarchy, it is said this was the topic upon which he

entertained the learned of Alexandria at supper; addressing himself to

Achoreus, high priest of the Nile, he says,

----_Nihil est, quod noscere malim,

Quam fluvii causas, per secula tanta latentis,

Ignotumque caput: spes sit mihi certa videndi

Niliacos fontes, bellum civile relinquam._

LUCAN.

The poet here pays Cæsar a compliment upon his curiosity, or desire of

knowledge, very much at the expence of his patriotism; for he makes

him declare, in so many words, that he considered making war with his

country as the greatest pleasure of his life, never to be abandoned,

but for that superior gratification--the discovery of the fountains of

the Nile.

Achoreus, proud of being referred to on such a subject by such a

person, enters into a detail of information.

_Quæ tibi noscendi Nilum, Romane, cupido est,

Hæc Phariis, Persisque fuit, Macedumque tyrannis:

Nullaque non ætas voluit conferre futuris

Notitiam: sed vincit adhuc natura latendi._

LUCAN.

Nero, as we are told, sent two centurions in search of this river, and

on their return they made their report in presence of Seneca, who does

not seem to have greatly distinguished himself by his inquiries. They

reported, that after having gone a very long way, they came to a king

of Ethiopia, who furnished them with necessaries and assistance, and

with his recommendations they arrived at some other kingdoms next to

these, and then came to immense lakes, the end of which was unknown to

the natives, nor did any one ever hope to find it: this was all the

satisfaction Nero procured, and it is probable these centurions went

not far, but were discouraged, and turned back with a trumped-up story

invented to cover their want of spirit, for we know now that there are

no such lakes between Egypt and the source of the Nile, but the lake

Tzana, or Dembea, and while on the banks of this, they might have seen

the country beyond, and on every side of it[126]; but I rather think no

such attempt was made, unless they endeavoured to pass the country of

the Shangalla about the end of June or July, when that province, as I

have already said, is absolutely impassible, by the rapid vegetation of

the trees, and the ground being all laid under water, which they might

have mistaken for a series of lakes.

After all these great efforts, the learned of antiquity began to

look upon the discovery as desperate, and not to be attained, for

which reason both poets and historians speak of it in a strain of

despondency:--

_Secreto de fonte cadens; qui semper inani

Quaerendus ratione latet, nec contigit ulli,

Hoc vidisse caput, fertur sine teste creatus._

CLAUDIAN.

And Pliny, as late as the time of Trajan, says, that these fountains

were in his time utterly unknown--_Nilus incertis ortus fontibus,

it per deserta et ardentia, et immenso longitudinis spatio

ambulans_[127],--nor was there any other attempt made later by the

ancients.

From this it is obvious, that none of the ancients ever made this

discovery of the source of the Nile. They gave it up entirely, and

_caput Nili quaerere_ became a proverb, marking the difficulty, or

rather the impossibility, of any undertaking. Let us now examine the

pretensions of the moderns.

The first in latter days who visited Abyssinia was a monk, and at

the same time a merchant; he was sent by Nonnosus, ambassador of the

emperor Justin, in the fifth year of the reign of that prince, that is

A. D. 522. He is called Cosmas the hermit, as also Indoplaustes. Many

have thought that this name was given him from his having travelled

much in India, properly so called; but we have no evidence that Cosmas

was ever in the Asiatic India, and I rather imagine he obtained his

name from his travels in Abyssinia, called by the ancients India; he

went as far as Axum, and seems to have paid proper attention to the

difference of climates, names, and situations of places, but he arrived

not at the Nile, nor did he attempt it. The province of the Agows was

probably at that time inaccessible, as the court was then in Tigré

at Axum, a considerable distance beyond the Tacazzé, and is to the

eastward of it.

None of the Portuguese who first arrived in Abyssinia, neither

Covillan, Roderigo de Lima, Christopher de Gama, nor the patriarch

Alphonso Mendes, ever saw, or indeed pretended to have seen, the source

of the Nile. At last, in the reign of Za Denghel, came Peter Paez, who

laid claim to this honour; how far his pretensions are just I am now

going to consider.--Paez has left a history of the mission, and some

remarkable occurrences that happened in that country, in two thick

volumes octavo, closely written in a plain stile; copies of this work

were circulated through every college and seminary of Jesuits that

existed in his time, and which have been everywhere found in their

libraries since the disgrace of that learned body.

Athanasius Kircher, a Jesuit, well known for his extensive learning

and voluminous writings, and still more for the rashness with which he

advances the most improbable facts in natural history, is the man that

first published an account of the fountains of the Nile, and, as he

says, from this journal left by Peter Paez.

I must, however, here observe, that no relation of this kind was to be

found in three copies of Peter Paez’s history, to which I had access

when in Italy, on my return home. One of these copies I saw at Milan,

and, by the interest of friends, had an opportunity of perusing it at

my leisure. The other two were at Bologna and Rome. I ran through them

rapidly, attending only to the place where the description ought to

have been, and where I did not find it; but having copied the first and

last page of the Milan manuscript, and comparing them with these two

last mentioned, I found that all the three were, word for word, the

same, and none of them contained one syllable of the discovery of the

source.

However this be, I do not think it is right for me to pronounce thus

much, unless I bring collateral proofs to strengthen my opinion, and

to shew that no such excursion was ever pretended to have been made by

that missionary, in any of his works, unless that which passed through

the hand of Kircher.

Alphonso Mendes came into Abyssinia about a year after Paez’s death.

New and desireable as that discovery must have been to himself, to the

pope, king of Spain, and all his great patrons in Portugal and Italy,

though he wrote the history of the country, and of the particulars

concerning the mission in great detail, and with good judgment, yet he

never mentions this journey of Peter Paez, though it probably must have

been conveyed to Rome and Portugal, after his inspection, and under his

authority.

Balthazar Tellez, a learned Jesuit, has wrote two volumes in folio

with great candour and impartiality, considering the spirit of those

times; and he declares his work to be compiled from this history of

Alphonso Mendes the patriarch, from the two volumes of Peter Paez, as

well as from the regular reports made by the individuals of the company

in some places, and by the provincial letters in others; to all which

he had compleat access, as also to the annual reports of Peter Paez

among the rest, from 1598 to 1622; yet Tellez makes no mention of such

a discovery, though he is very particular as to the merit of each

missionary during the long reign of Sultan Segued, or Socinios, which

occupies more than half of the two volumes.

After these strong presumptions, that Peter Paez neither made such a

journey nor ever pretended it, I shall submit the account that Paez

himself, or Kircher for him, has given of the expedition and consequent

discovery; and if any of my readers can persuade themselves that a

man of genius, such as was Peter Paez, transported by accident to

these fountains, and exulting as he does upon the discovery, the value

of which he seems to have known well, could yet have given such a

description as he does, I am then contented with being only the partner

of Peter Paez.

Before I state the account of his observations in his own, or in

Kircher’s words, I have one observation to make regarding the dates and

time of the journey. That memorable day which has been fixed upon for

the discovery, is the 21st of April 1618. The rains are then begun,

and on that account the season being very unwholesome, armies, without

extreme necessity, are rarely in the field; between September and

February at farthest is the time the Abyssinian army is abroad from the

capital, and in action.

There are two nations of Agows in Abyssinia, the one near the fountains

of the Nile, called the Agows of Damot; the other near the head of the

Tacazzé, in the province of Lasta, called the Tcheratz Agows. Now, we

see from the annals of Socinios’s reign, that he had several campaigns

against the Agows. The first was in the fourth year of his reign, in

the year 1608; his annals say it was against the Tcheratz Agow. His

second campaign was in the seventh year of his reign, or 1611; that,

too, was against the Agows of Lasta; so that if Peter Paez was with

the emperor in either of these campaigns, he could not have seen the

head of any river but that of the Tacazzé. The third campaign was in

1625, against Sacala, Geesh, and Ashoa, when the Galla made an inroad

into Gojam, but retired upon the royal army’s marching against them,

and crossed the Nile into their own country. Socinios upon this had

advanced against the Agows of Damot, then in rebellion also, and had

fought with Sacala, Ashoa, and Geesh likewise, the clan immediately

contiguous to the sources. Now this was surely the time when Peter

Paez, or any attendant on the emperor, might have seen the fountains

of the Nile in safety, as the king’s army, in whole or in part, must

have been encamped near, or perhaps upon, the very sources themselves;

a place, of all other, suited for such a purpose; but this was in the

year 1625, and Peter Paez died in the year 1622.

I shall now state, in Kircher’s own words, translated into English, the

description he has given, as from Paez, of the sources which he saw;

and I will fairly submit, to any reader of judgment, whether this is a

description he ought to be content with from an eye-witness, whether

it may not suit the sources of any other river as well as those of the

Nile, or whether in itself it is distinct enough to leave one clear

idea behind it.

“The river[128], at this day, by the Ethiopians is called the Abaoy;

it rises in the kingdom of Gojam, in a territory called Sabala, whose

inhabitants are called Agows. The source of the Nile is situated

in the west part of Gojam, in the highest part of a valley, which

resembles a great plain on every side, surrounded by high mountains.

On the 21st of April, in the year 1618, being here, together with the

king and his army, I ascended the _place_, and observed every thing

with great attention; I discovered first two round fountains, each

about four palms in diameter, and saw, with the greatest delight, what

neither Cyrus[129] king of the Persians, nor Cambyses, nor Alexander

the Great, nor the famous Julius Cæsar, could ever discover. The two

openings of these fountains have no issue in the plain on the top of

the mountain, but flow from the root of it. The second fountain lies

about a stone-cast west from the first: the inhabitants say that this

whole mountain is full of water, and add, that the whole plain about

the fountain is floating and unsteady, a certain mark that there is

water concealed under it; for which reason, the water does not overflow

at the fountain, but forces itself with great violence out at the

foot of the mountain. The inhabitants, together with the emperor, who

was then present with his army, maintain that that year it trembled

little on account of the drought, but other years, that it trembled and

overflowed so as that it could scarce be approached without danger.

The breadth of the circumference may be about the cast of a sling:

below the top of this mountain the people live about a league distant

from the fountain to the west; and this place is called Geesh, and the

fountain seems to be a cannon-shot distant from Geesh; moreover, the

field where the fountain is, is upon all sides difficult of access,

except on the north side, where it may be ascended with ease.”

I shall make only a few observations upon this description, sufficient

to shew that it cannot be that of Paez, or any man who had ever been

in Abyssinia: there is no such place known as Sabala; he should have

called it Sacala: in the Ethiopic language Sacala means the highest

ridge of land, where the water falls down equally on both sides,

from east and west, or from north and south. So the sharp roofs of

our houses, or tops of our tents, in that manner are called Sacala,

because the water runs down equally on opposite sides; so does it in

the highest lands in every country, and so here in Sacala, where the

Nile runs to the north, but several streams, which form the rivers Lac

and Temsi, fall down the cliff, or precipice, and proceed southward in

the plain of Ashoa about 300 feet below the level of the ground where

the mountain of Geesh stands, at the very foot of which is the marsh

wherein are the sources of the river.

Again, neither Sacala nor Geesh are on the west side of Gojam,

nor approach to these directions; as, first the high mountains of

Litchambara, then the still higher of Amid Amid, are to be crossed

over, before you reach Gojam from Sacala; and after descending from

that high barrier of mountains called Amid Amid, you come into the

province of Damot, when the whole breadth of that province is still

between you and the west part of Gojam. These are mistakes which it is

almost impossible to make, when a man is upon the spot, in the midst

of a whole army, every one capable, and surely willing (as he was a

favourite of the king) to give him every sort of information; nor

was there probably any one there who would not have thought himself

honoured to have been employed to fetch a _straw_ for him from the top

of Amid Amid.

Both the number and situations of the fountains, and the situations of

the mountain and village of Geesh with respect to them, are therefore

absolutely false, as the reader will observe in attending to my

narrative and the map. This relation of Paez’s was in my hand the

5th of November, when I surveyed these fountains, and all the places

adjacent. I measured all his distances with a gunter’s chain in my own

hand, and found every one of them to be imaginary; and these measures

so taken, as also the journal now submitted to the public, were fairly

and fully written the same day that they were made, before the close of

each evening.

It is not easy to conceive what species of information Paez intends to

convey to us by the observation he makes lower, “That the water, which

found way at the foot of the mountain, did not flow at the top of it.”

It would have been very singular if it had; and I fully believe that a

mountain voiding the water at its top, when it had free access to run

out at its bottom, would have been one of the most curious things the

two Jesuits could ever have seen in any voyage. But what mountain is it

he is speaking of? he has never named any one, but has said the Nile

was situated in the highest part of a plain. I cannot think he means

by this that the highest part of a plain is a mountain; if he does, it

is a species of description which would need an interpreter. He says

again, the mountain is full of water, and trembles; and that there is a

village below the top of the mountain, on the mountain itself. This I

never saw; they must have cold and slippery quarters in that mountain,

or whatever it is; and if he means the mountain of Geesh, there is not

a village within a quarter a mile of it. The village of Geesh is in the

middle of a high cliff, descending into the plain of Ashoa. The bottom

of that cliff or plain is 300 feet, as I have already said, below the

base of the mountain of Geesh, and the place where the fountains rise.

Paez next says, that it is three miles from that village of Geesh to

the fountains of the Nile. Now, as my quadrant was placed in my tent,

on the brink of the cliff of Geesh, it was necessary for me to measure

that distance; and by allowing for it to reduce my observations to the

exact spot where the sources rose, I did accordingly with a chain

measure from the brink of the precipice to the center of the altar,

in which the principal fountain stands, and found it 1760 feet or 586

yards 2 feet, and this is the distance Paez calls a league, or the

largest range of a shell shot from a mortar; this I do aver is an error

that is absolutely impossible for any travellers to commit upon the

spot, or else his narrative in general should have very little weight

in point of precision.

I shall close these observations with one which I think must clearly

evince Paez had never been upon the spot. He says the field, in which

the fountains of the Nile are, is of very difficult access, the ascent

to it being very steep, excepting on the north, where it is plain

and easy. Now, if we look at the beginning of this description, we

should think it would be the descent, not the ascent that would be

troublesome; for the fountains were placed in a valley, and people

rather descend into valleys than ascend into them; but supposing it a

valley in which there was a field, upon which there was a mountain, and

on the mountain these fountains, still I say that these mountains are

nearly inaccessible on the three sides, but that the most difficult of

them all is the north, the way we ascend from the plain of Goutto. From

the east, by Sacala, the ascent is made from the valley of Litchambara,

and from the plain of Assoa, to the south, you have the almost

perpendicular craggy cliff of Geesh, covered with thorny bushes, trees,

and bamboos, which conceal the mouths of the caverns; and, on the

north, you have the mountains of Aformasha, thick-set with all sorts of

thorny shrubs and trees, especially with the kantussa; these thickets

are, moreover, full of wild beasts, especially huge, long-haired

baboons, which we frequently met walking upright. Through these high

and difficult mountains we have only narrow paths, like those of sheep,

made by the goats, or the wild beasts we are speaking of, which, after

we had walked on them for a long space, landed us frequently at the

edge of some valley, or precipice, and forced us to go back again to

search for a new road. From towards Zeegam, to the westward, and from

the plain where the river winds so much, is the only easy access to the

fountains of the Nile, and they that ascend to them by this way will

not think even that approach too easy.

It remains only for me to say, that neither have the Jesuits, (Paez his

brethren in the mission, and his contemporaries) made any geographical

use of this discovery, either in longitude or latitude; nor have the

historians of his society, who have followed afterwards, with all

the information and documents before them, thought proper even to

quote his travels; it will not be easy, from the authority of a man

like Athanasius Kircher, writing at Rome, to support the reality of

such a discovery, not to be found in the genuine writings of Peter

Paez himself. With such a voyage, if it had been real, there should

have been published at least an itinerary, and most of the Jesuits

were capable enough to have made a rough observation of longitude and

latitude, in the country where they resided, for near one hundred

years. Add to this, no observation appears from any Jesuit of the

idolatry or pagan worship, which prevailed near the source of the Nile,

and this would seem to have been their immediate province.

From Dancaz they might have taken very properly their departure, and,

by a compass, the use of which was then well known to the Portuguese,

they might have kept their route to those fountains without much

trouble, and, with a sufficient degree of exactness, to shew all the

world the road by which they went. They were not fifty miles distant

from Geesh when at Gorgora, and they have erred above sixty, which is

ten miles more than the whole distance; this happened because they

sought the fountains in Gojam, from which, at Gorgora, they knew

themselves to be at that distance, and where the source of the Nile

never was.

When I set out from Gondar, whose latitude and longitude I had first

well ascertained, I thought in such a pursuit as this, where local

discovery was the only thing sought after in all ages, that the best

way was to substitute perhaps a drier journal, or itinerary, to a more

pleasant account; with this view I kept the length of my journies

each day by a watch, and my direction by the compass. I did observe,

indeed, many altitudes of the sun and stars at Dingleber, at Kelti, and

at Goutto; and lastly, I ascertained the other extreme, the sources

of the Nile, by a number of observations of latitude, and by a very

distinct and favourable one for the longitude: I calculated none of

these celestial observations till I went back to Gondar. I returned by

a different way on the other side of the Nile, and made one observation

of the sun at Welled Abea Abbo, the house of Shalaka Welled Amlac,

of whom I am about to speak. Arrived at Gondar, I summed up my days

journies, reduced my bearings and distances to a plain course, as if

I had been at sea, taking a mean where there was any thing doubtful,

and in this topographical draught laid down every village through

which I had passed, or which I had seen at a small distance out of

the road, to which I may add every river, an immense number of which

I had crossed between Gondar and Geesh, whither I was going. The

reader, upon the inspection of this small map, will form some, but a

very inadequate idea of the immense labour it cost me: However, the

result, when I arrived at Gondar, amply rewarded me for my pains,

upon comparing my route by the compass, to what it came to be when

ascertained by observation; I found my error of computation upon the

whole to be something more than 9 miles in latitude, and very nearly 7

in longitude; an error not perceptible in the journey upon any reduced

scale, and very immaterial to all purposes of geography in any large

one.

Now Peter Paez, or any man laying claim to a discovery so long and so

ardently desired, should surely have done the same; especially as from

Gorgora he had little more than half of the journal to keep. But if it

were true, that he made the discovery which Kircher attributes to him,

still, for want of this necessary attention, he has left the world in

the darkness he found it; he travelled like a thief, discovered that

secret source, and took a peep at it, then covered it again as if he

had been affrightened at the sight of it.

Ludolf and Vossius are very merry, without mentioning names, with this

story of the discovery, which they think Kircher makes for Peter Paez,

whom they call the River Finder: they say, it is extremely laughable

to think, that the emperor of Abyssinia brought a Jesuit of Europe

to be the antiquary of his country, and to instruct him first, that

the fountains of the Nile were in his dominions, and in what part

of them. But, with Vossius’s leave, this is a species of intemperate

ill-founded criticism; neither Kircher, nor Paez, nor whoever was

author of that work, ever said they instructed the emperor about the

place in his dominions where the Nile arose, as what he says is only

that the Agows of Geesh reported that the mountain trembled in dry

weather, and had done so that year, when the emperor, who was present,

confirmed the Agow’s report: this is not saying that Peter Paez told

the emperor encamped with his army upon the fountains, that the Nile

rose in his dominions, and that this was the source. Wo be to the works

of Scaliger, Bochart, or Vossius, when they shall, in their turn, be

submitted to such criticism as this.

A Protestant mission was the next, that I know of at least, which

succeeded that of the Portuguese, and consisted only of one traveller,

Peter Heyling, of Lubec; although he lived in the country, nay,

governed it several years, he never attempted to visit the source of

that river; he had dedicated himself to a studious and solitary life,

having, among other parts of his reading, a very competent knowledge of

Roman, or civil law; he is said to have given a great deal of his time

to the compiling an institute of that law in the Abyssinian language

for the use of that nation, upon a plan he had brought from Germany;

but he did not live to finish it, though that and two other books,

written in Geez, still exist in private hands in Abyssinia, at least I

have been often confidently told so.

The next and last attempt I shall take notice of, and one of the most

extraordinary that ever was made for the discovery of the Nile, was

that of a German nobleman, Peter Joseph le Roux, comte de Desneval.

This gentleman had been in the Danish navy ever since the year 1721,

and in 1739 was raised to the rank of rear-admiral in that service.

He says, in a publication of his own now lying before me, that the

ambassador of Louis XIV. (M. du Roule) and all those sent by the Dutch

and English to visit that country, had perished, because they were

ignorant of the proper _key_ to be employed to enter that country,

which he flattered himself he had found in Denmark.

In 1739 he resigned his Danish commission, and began his first attempt

in Egypt, whilst, for the greater facility of travelling in these

_mild_ and _hospitable_ countries, he took his wife along with him. The

count and the countess went as far as Cairo, where they wisely began

at a festival to dispute upon the etiquette with a Turkish mob, and

this bringing the janizaries and guards of police upon them to take

them into custody, the _grey mare_, as they say, proved the better

_horse_; Madame la comtesse de Desneval exerted herself so much, that

she defeated the body of janizaries, wounding several of them, armed

only with a very feminine weapon, a pair of scissars, which, with full

as much profit, and much more decency, she might have been using,

surrounded with her family at home.

However well acquainted the count was with the key for entering into

Abyssinia, he had not apparently got the door. In fact, his first

scheme was a most ridiculous one; he resolved to ascend the Nile in

a barge armed with small cannon, and all necessary provisions for

himself and wife. Some people wiser than himself, whom he met at Cairo,

suggested to him, that, supposing government might protect him so

far as to allow his barge safely to pass the confines of Egypt and to

the first cataract, where the malice of the pilots would certainly

have destroyed her, and supposing she was arrived at Ibrim or Deir,

the last garrisons depending on Cairo, and that this might have been

atchieved by money, (for by money any thing may be obtained from the

government of Cairo,) yet still, some days journey above the garrisons

of Deir and Ibrim, begin the barren and dreadful deserts of Nubia; and

farther south, at the great cataract of Jan Adel, the Nile falls twenty

feet down a perpendicular rock; so here certainly was to be the end

of his voyage; but the count, being ignorant of the manners of those

countries, and exceedingly presumptuous of his own powers, flattered

himself to obtain such assistance from the garrison of Ibrim and Deir,

that he could unscrew his vessel, take her to pieces, and carry her, by

force of men, round behind the cataract, where he was to rescrew and

launch her again into the Nile.

The Kennouss, inhabiting near the cataract, have several villages,

particularly two, one called Succoot, or the place of tents, where

Kalid Ibn el Waalid, after taking Syene in the Khalifat of Omar,

encamped his army in his march to Dongola; the other, in a plain near

the river, called Asel Dimmo, or the Field of Blood, where the same

Kalid defeated an army of Nubians, who were marching to the relief of

Dongola, which was by him immediately after besieged and taken. These

two villages are on the Egyptian side of the cataract; the direct

occupation of the inhabitants is gathering sena, where it very much

abounds, and they carry it in boats down to Cairo. Above, and on the

other side of the cataract, is another large village of the Kennouss,

called Takaki. Some of these miserable wretches, were brought to the

count, and a treaty made, that all these men of the two villages were

to assist him in his re-embarkation, after he had got his barge round

the cataract; and among these barbarians he would have lost his life.

The count, besides his wife, had brought with him his lieutenant, Mr

Norden, a Dane, who was to serve him as draughtsman; but neither the

count, countess, nor lieutenant understood one word of the languages.

There are always (happily for travellers) wise and honest men among

the French and Venetian merchants at Cairo, who, seeing the obstinacy

of the count, persuaded him that it was more military, and more in

the stile of an admiral, to detach Norden, his inferior officer, to

reconnoitre Ibrim, Deir, and the cataract of Jan Adel, as also to renew

his treaty with the Kennouss at Succoot and Asel Dimmo.

Norden accordingly sailed in the common embarkations used upon

the Nile; the voyage is in every body’s hands. It has certainly a

considerable deal of merit, but is full of squabbles and fightings

with boat-men and porters, which might as well have been left out, as

they lead to no instruction, but serve only to discourage travellers,

for they were chiefly owing to ignorance of language. It was with the

utmost difficulty, and after many disasters, that Norden arrived at

Syenè, and the first cataract; after which greater and greater were

encountered before he reached Ibrim, where the Kascheff put him in

prison, robbed him of what he had in the boat, and scarcely suffered

him to return to Cairo without cutting his throat, which, for a

considerable time, he and his soldiers had determined to do.

This sample of the difficulties, or rather impossibility of the voyage

into Abyssinia by Nubia, discouraged the count; and much reason had he

to be thankful that his attempt had not ended among the Kennouss at

Succoot. He therefore changed his plan, and resolved to enter Abyssinia

by a voyage round the Cape into the Indian Ocean, through the Straits

of Babelmandeb into the Red Sea, and so to Masuah. In this voyage he

began to make use of his Spanish commission, and, having taken two

English ships, under protection of a neutral fort in the Isle of May,

he was met there some days after by commodore Barnet, who made all his

ships prizes, and sent the count home passenger in a Portuguese ship to

Lisbon.

CHAP. XIV.

_Description of the Sources of the Nile--Of Geesh--Accounts of its

several Cataracts--Course from its Rise to the Mediterranean._

I hope that what I have now said will be thought sufficient to convince

all impartial readers, that these celebrated sources have, as it

were, by a fatality, remained to our days as unknown as they were to

antiquity, no good or genuine voucher having yet been produced capable

of proving that they were before discovered, or seen by the curious

eye of any traveller, from earliest ages to this day; and it is with

confidence I propose to my reader, that he will consider me as still

standing at these fountains, and patiently hear from me the recital of

the origin, course, names, and circumstances of this the most famous

river in the world, which he will in vain seek from books, or from any

other human authority whatever, and which, by the care and attention I

have paid to the subject, will, I hope, be found satisfactory here:--

----_Non fabula mendax

Ausa loqui de fonte tuo est: ubicunque videris,

Quœreris; et nulli contingit gloria genti,

Ut Nilo sit lœta suo, tua flumina prodam,

Quâ Deus undarum celator, Nile, tuarum_

Te mihi nôsse dedit._----

LUCAN.

The Agows of Damot pay divine honour to the Nile; they worship the

river, and thousands of cattle have been offered, and still are

offered, to the spirit supposed to reside at its source. They are

divided into clans, or tribes; and it is worthy of observation, that

it is said there never was a feud, or hereditary animosity between any

two of these clans; or, if the seeds of any such were sown, they did

not vegetate longer than till the next general convocation of all the

tribes, who meet annually at the source of the river, to which they

sacrifice, calling it by the name of the _God of Peace_. One of the

least considerable of these clans, for power and number, has still

the preference among its brethren, from the circumstance that, in its

territory, and near the miserable village that gives it name, are

situated the much sought-for springs from which the Nile rises.

Geesh, however, though not farther distant from these than 600 yards,

is not in sight of the sources of the Nile. The country, upon the same

plane with the fountains, terminates in a cliff about 300 yards deep

down to the plain of Assoa, which flat country continues in the same

subaltern degree of elevation, till it meets the Nile again about

seventy miles southward, after it has made the circuit of the provinces

of Gojam and Damot. This cliff seems purposely fashioned into many

shelves or stages, each of which is occupied by a cluster of houses

seldom above eight or ten in number; some above, some below, some along

the side of each other, but chiefly occupying the space, or two-thirds

of the middle of the cliff, that is, none of them nearer to the top of

the cliff, nor to the plain of Assoa below, than a distance equal to

that proportion of the whole. The reason of choosing this situation is

the fear of the Galla, who have often invaded that part of Abyssinia,

and have even exterminated some clans of Agows entirely.

In the middle of this cliff, in a direction straight north towards

the fountains, is a prodigious cave, whether the work of nature or

of art, I cannot determine; in it are many bye-paths, so that it is

very difficult for a stranger to extricate himself; it is a natural

labyrinth, large enough to contain the inhabitants of the village, and

their cattle; there are likewise two or three lesser ones, which I

did not see; in this large one, I tired myself part of several days,

endeavouring to reach as far northward as possible, but the air, when I

had advanced something above one hundred yards, seemed to threaten to

extinguish my candle by its dampness; and the people were besides not

at all disposed to gratify my curiosity farther, after assuring me that

there was nothing at the end more remarkable than I then saw, which I

have reason to believe was the case.

The face of this cliff, which fronts to the south, has a most

picturesque appearance from the plain of Assoa below, parts of the

houses at every stage appearing, through the thickets of trees and

bushes with which the whole face of the cliff is thickly covered;

impenetrable fences of the very worst kind of thorn, hide the

mouths of the caverns above mentioned, even from sight; there is no

other communication with the houses either from above or below, but

by narrow-winding sheep-paths, which through these thorns are very

difficult to be discerned, for all are allowed to be overgrown with

the utmost wildness, as a part of their defence; lofty and large trees

(most of them of the thorny kind) tower high up above the edge of the

cliff, and seem to be a fence against people falling down into the

plain; these are all at their proper season covered with flowers of

different sorts and colours, so are the bushes below on the face of

the cliff: every thorn in Abyssinia indeed bears a beautiful flower; a

small atonement for the evils they occasion.

From the edge of the cliff of Geesh above where the village is

situated, the ground slopes with a very easy descent due north, and

lands you at the edge of a triangular marsh above eighty-six yards

broad, in the line of the fountains, and two hundred and eighty-six

yards two feet from the edge of the cliff above the house of the priest

of the river, where I resided: this triangle, supposing it a right one,

will measure one hundred and ninety-six yards in its length, or in the

perpendicular; I mean it did so on the 6th of November 1770; doubtless,

like other marshes, in the middle of the dry season, and of the

rains, it will vary its dimensions. I suppose that this perpendicular

represents the north of the marsh, and immediately from the brink of

it the ground rises in a rather steep bank, and forms a round hill not

a hundred yards high, upon the top of which is placed the church of

St Michael Geesh; I did not measure this distance, but am sure it is

very little less than five hundred yards from the church to the middle

fountain. On the east the ground descends likewise with a very easy

tho’ perceptible slope from the large village of Sacala, which gives

its name to that territory; it is distant six miles from the source,

but, to sight, seems scarcely to be two.

I shall suppose the sharp point of the triangle composed of the

hypothenuse and the perpendicular, to point like the needle of a

compass to Sacala, and the line of the hypothenuse to represent the

south side of the marsh near the village Geesh. The base, or line,

uniting the west end of the hypothenuse, and forming the right angle

with the other side, I suppose to be the edge of the marsh formed by

the bottom of the mountain of Geesh, and from this west side of it

rises this high and beautiful mountain, quite detached from others,

like a pyramid, which it resembles in its elegant and regular form. It

is about 4870 feet high measured in the slope; for near one half way

the ascent is very easy and gradual. The base being of a remarkable

breadth, it then becomes exceedingly steep, but all the way covered

with good earth, producing fine grass and clover, interspersed with

wild flowers.

Upon the rock in the middle of this plain, the Agows used to pile up

the bones of the beasts killed in sacrifice, mixing them with billets

of wood, after which they set them on fire. This is now discontinued,

or rather transferred to another place near the church, as they are at

present indulged in the full enjoyment of their idolatrous rites, both

under Fasil and Michael.

In the middle of this marsh (that is about forty yards from each side

of it) and something less from the bottom of the mountain of Geesh,

arises a hillock of a circular form, about three feet from the surface

of the marsh itself, though apparently founded much deeper in it. The

diameter of this is something short of twelve feet, it is surrounded by

a shallow trench, which collects the water and voids it eastward; it

is firmly built with sod or earthen turf, brought from the sides, and

constantly kept in repair, and this is the altar upon which all their

religious ceremonies are performed. In the middle of this altar is a

hole, obviously made, or at least enlarged by the hand of man. It is

kept clear of grass, or other aquatic plants, and the water in it is

perfectly pure and limpid, but has no ebullition or motion of any kind

discernible upon its surface. This mouth, or opening of the source,

is some parts of an inch less than three feet diameter, and the water

stood at that time the 5th of November, about two inches from the lip

or brim, nor did it either increase or diminish during all the time of

my stay at Geesh though we made plentiful use of it.

Upon putting down the shaft of my lance at six feet four inches, I

found a very feeble resistance, as if from weak rushes or grass,

and about six inches deeper I found my lance had entered into soft

earth, but met with no stones or gravel; this was confirmed by another

experiment, made on the 9th with a heavy plummet and line besmeared

with soap, the bottom of which brought up at the above depth only black

earth, such as the marsh itself and its sides are composed of.

Ten feet distant from the first of these springs, a little to the west

of south, is the second fountain, about eleven inches in diameter, but

this is eight feet, three inches deep. And about twenty feet distant

from the first, to the S. S. W. is the third source, its mouth being

something more than two feet large, and it is five feet eight inches

deep. Both these last fountains stand in the middle of small altars,

made, like the former, of firm sod, but neither of them above three

feet diameter, and having a foot of less elevation than the first. The

altar in this third source seemed almost dissolved by the water, which

in both flood nearly up to the brim; at the foot of each appeared a

clear and brisk running rill; these uniting joined the water in the

trench of the first altar, and then proceeded directly out, I suppose,

at the point of the triangle, pointing eastward, in a quantity that

would have filled a pipe of about two inches diameter.

The water from these fountains is very light and good, and perfectly

tasteless; it was at this time most intensely cold, though exposed

to the mid-day sun without shelter, there being no trees nor bushes

nearer it than the cliff of Geesh on its south side, and the trees that

surround Saint Michael Geesh on the north, which, according to the

custom of Abyssinia, is, like other churches, planted in the midst of a

grove.