doms and provinces through which it passeth; for the greatest part of Ethiopia being mountainous and the torrents swelled in the winter, the mountains so transmit them as to increase the river, which falling into the Nile make no little addition to its greatness, causing it to run with such a stock of water as overflows the plains of Egypt. This is the river the Scripture calleth Gihon, which encompassed the land of Ethiopia, so doth the Nile with its. turnings and meanders. The head rises in the most pleasant recess of the territory, having two springs called eyes, each about the bigness of a coachwheel, distant from each other about twenty paces: the pagan inhabitants adore as an idol the biggest, offering to it many sacrifices of cows which they kill there, flinging the head into the spring, eat the flesh as holy, lay the bones together in a place designed for that purpose, which at present make a considerable hill, and would make it much bigger, if carnivorous beasts and birds of prey did not, by picking them, lessen and scatter them." The curious reader will be struck with ob serving serving how very nearly the account given by Mr. Bruce resembles this, which is here laid before him. That Mr. Bruce should take no notice of either of these books, though it is scarcely possible but he must have seen or heard of them, is singular. Mr. Rennel has however shewn, in a late publication on the Geography of Herodotus, that the river, the head of which has been here described, is only one and an inferior source of the Nile, and that the largest and principal source of that celebrated stream rises at a great distance from Agoas, and much higher up in the country, and which has probably never yet been visited by any European. The principal source of the Nile, therefore, remaining still undiscovered, the proverb continues in full force. Terram video. I see land, may be said by persons getting nearly to the end of a long and troublesome business, or concluding any great work or labour; more directly, and to this the adage owes its origin, by those who have been a long time at sea, and perhaps been driven about by adverse winds, on first espying the shore, "Thank God, I once more see land!" an ejaculation which some of my readers may perhaps make at finding they have got to the end of this book; and it may not be less satisfactory to them to learn, that the writer or collector of this miscellany is too far advanced in life, to be likely to make any considerable addition to them. FINIS. Ad Concilium ne accesseris, antequam voceris Ad felicem inflectere Parietem Ad Finem ubi perveneris, ne velis reverti 131 58 - 66 13 Ad pœnitendum properat cito qui judicat vol. ii. 95 Ad Unguem Adversus Solem ne loquitor Edibus in nostris quæ prava aut recta geruntur Egroto dum Anima est, spes est 131 14 142 vol. ii. 13 Equalis æqualem delectat Æthiopem ex Vultu judico 43 210 A Fabis abstineto Albæ Gallina Filius Album Calculum addere Alienos Agros irrigas, tuis sitientibus 9 31 122 67 119 vol. ii. 31 |