Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/158

136 know, is that river in Abyssinia within 300 miles of any sea; and, still more so, how it could be in Nubia, and yet in Upper Ethiopia. Dongola is, indeed, the capital of Nubia; it is upon the Nile in 20° north latitude; but then it cannot be in Upper Ethiopia, but certainly in the Lower, and is not within a hundred miles of the Red Sea, and certainly not the way for a ship from India to get to Abyssinia, which, sailing down the Red Sea, it must have passed several hundred miles, and gone to the northward: Dongola, besides, is in the heart of the great desert of Beja, and cannot, with any degree of propriety, be said to be easily accessible to any, no, not even upon camels, but impossible to shipping, as it is not within 200 miles of any sea. On the other hand, Dancali, for which it may have been mistaken, is a small kingdom on the coast of the Red Sea, reaching to the frontiers of Abyssinia; and through it the patriarch Mendes entered Abyssinia, as has been said in my history; but then Dancali is in lat. 12°, it is not in Nubia, nor upon the Nile, nor within several hundred miles of it.

, Lobo has said, (p. 30. 31.) "that a Portuguese galliot was ordered to set him ashore at Paté, whose inhabitants were man-eaters." This is a very whimsical choice of a place to land strangers in, among man-eaters. I cannot conceive what advantage could be proposed by landing men going to Abyssinia so far to the southward, among a people such as this, who certainly, by their very manners, must be at war, and unconnected with all their neighbours. And many ages have passed without this reproach having fallen upon the inhabitants of the east coast of the peninsula of Africa from any authentic testimony; and I am confident, after the few specimens just given of the topographical knowledge of this