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 herbary123, 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.
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:—
Cambyses’ attempt to penetrate into Ethiopia, and the defeat of his schemes, I have already narrated at sufficient length124.
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:—
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 atchievements125; 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.
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,
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.
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 it126; 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:—
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 ambulans127,—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 river128, 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 Cyrus129 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.