Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/614

 590 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

make is, that they cannot procure frankincenfe, without which, it feems, their mafs or fervice cannot be celebrated ; but the truth is, they are ftill Pagans ; and the church, ha- ving been built in memory of a victory over them above a hundred years ago, is not a favourite object before their eyes, but a memorial of their inferiority and misfortune. This church is called St Michael Sacala, to diftinguifh it from another more to the fouthward, called St Michael Geefh.

At three quarters after one we arrived at the top of the mountain, whence we had a diflinct view of all the re- maining territory of Sacala, the mountain Geefh, and church of St Michael Geefh, about a mile and a half diftant from St Michael Sacala, where we then were. We faw, im- mediately below us, the Nile itfelf, ftrangely diminifhed in fize, and now only a brook that had fcarccly water to turn a mill I could not fatiate myfelf with the fight, revolving in my mind all thofe claflical prophecies that had given the Nile "up to perpetual obicuriry and concealment. The lines of the poet came immediately into my mind, and I enjoy- ed here, for the firft time, the triumph which already, by the protection of Providence, and my own intrepidity, I had gained over all that were powerful, and all that were learned, fince the remotefl antiquity: —

Arcanum naiura caput vo?i prodidit id/i, Nee Ucuit populis parvum te, Nile^ v id ere ; AmovitquefinuSy et gentes maluit ortus - Mir art i quam ?:6jfe iuos.

LUC AN.

I was