Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/56

xl incredulity, we were fast advancing to the celebrated epoch of the man in the pint-bottle, and from that time to be as absurdly incredulous as we were then the reverse, and with the same degree of reason.

is five long days journey south from Bengazi; it has no water, except a spring very disagreeable to the taste, that appears to be impregnated with alum, and this has given it the name it bears of Ras Sem, or the Fountain of Poison, from its bitterness. The whole remains here consist in the ruins of a tower or fortification, that seems to be a work full as late as the time of the Vandals. How or what use they made of this water I cannot possibly guess; they had no other at the distance of two days journey. I was not fortunate enough to discover the petrified men and horses, the women at the churn, the little children, the cats, the dogs, and the mice, which his Barbarian excellency assured Sir Hans Sloane existed there: Yet, in vindication of his Excellency, I must say, that though he propagated, yet he did not invent this falsehood; the Arabs who conducted me maintained the same stories to be true, till I was within two hours of the place, where I found them to be false. I saw indeed mice, as they are called, of a very extraordinary kind, having nothing of petrifaction about them, but agile and active, so to partake as much of the bird as the beast.

now the sea-coast I came to Ptolometa, the ancient Ptolemais, the work of Ptolemy Philadelphus, the