Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/450

 426 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

ward in the line of its courfe, railing a wave, or violent ebullition, by chaffing againll each other.

Jerome Lobo pretends, that he has fat under the curve,, or arch, made by the projectile force of the water ruffling over the precipice. He fays he fat calmly at the foot of it, and looking through the curve of the ftream, as it was fall- ing, law a number of rainbows of inconceivable beautv in this extraordinary prifm. This however I, without hefita- tion, aver to be a downright falfehood. A deep pool -of wa- ter, as I mentioned, reaches to the very foot of the rock, and is in perpetual agitation. Now, allowing that there was a feat, or bench, which there is not, in the middle of the, pool, I do believe it abfolutely impoffible, by any exertion of human ftrength, to have arrived at it. Although a very robuft man, in the prime and vigour of life, and a hardy, practifed, indefatigable fwimmer, I am perfectly confident I could not have got to that feat from the fhore through the quieteft part of that bafon.. And, fuppofing the friar placed in his imaginary feat under the curve of that immenfe arch of water, he mull have had a portion of firmnefs, more than falls to the lhare of ordinary men, and which is not likely to be acquired in a monaliic life, to philofophife upon op- tics in fuch a fituation, where every thing would feem to his dazzled eyes to be in motion, and the ftream, in a noife like the loudeft thunder, to make the folid rock (at leaft as to fenfe) lhake to its very foundation, and threaten to tear- every nerve to pieces, and to deprive one of other fenfes be- sides that of hearing. It was a moft magnificent fight, that ages, added to the greateft length of human life, would not deface or eradicate from my memory ; it ftruck me with a. kind of ftupor, and a total oblivion of where I was, and of

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