Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 2.djvu/491

 ences of near fifty observations, made with a three-feet brass quadrant, in the course of several months I staid in that town, is lat 13° 34' 36" north.

I have to say further concerning Sennaar will come more naturally in my own travels; and I shall only so far confider the rest of Poncet's route, as to explain and clear it from mistakes, Sennaar being the only point in which our two trails unite.

beg the reader to remark, that, from the time of Poncet's setting out of Egypt till his arrival at Sennaar, so far was he from being ill looked upon, or any bad construction being put upon his errand, that he was, on the contrary, respected everywhere, as going to the king of Abyssinia. It never was then imagined he was to dry up the Nile, nor that he was a conjurer to change its course, nor that he was to teach the Abyssinians to cast cannon and make war, nor that he was loaded with immense sums of money. These were all pier fraudes lies invented by the priests and friars to incite these ignorant barbarians to a crime which, though it passed unrevenged, will justly make these brethren in iniquity the devestation of men of every religion in all ages.

left Sennaar the 12th of May 1699, and crossed the Nile at Basboch, about four miles above the town, where he stopped for three days. This he calls a fair village; but it is a very miserable one, confiding of scarce 100 huts, built of mud and reeds.