Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/631

 THE SOURCE OF THE NILE.

Sesostris, one of the earlieft and greateft conquerors antiquity, is mentioned, amidit all his victories, earn have defired to penetrate to the head of the Nile, as a glory he preferred to almofl univerfal monarchy : —

Vetut ad occafum, mundique cxtrcma Sefoflris,

Et Pbarios currus regum ccrvicibus egit :

Ante tamen vejlros amnes Rbodaii unique, Padumque r

g>uam Nil urn defonte bibit.

Luc AN.

Ca mb yses' attempt to penetrate intoEthiopia, and the defeat of his fchemes, I have already narrated at fufficient length*.

, «. Vefauus in ortus

Cambyfes longi populos pervenit ad cev'i,

Defetlufque epulis, Iff pajlus cade fuorum

Ignoto te, Nile, reditu Lucan.

The attention paid by Alexander, the next prince who at- tempted an expedition towards thefe unknown fountains, merits a little more of our confideration. After he had con- quered Egypt, and was arrived at the temple of Jupiter Am- nion, (the celebrated and ancient deity of the fhepherds) in the Theban defert, the firft queftion he afked was con- cerning the fpot where the Nile rofe. Having received from the priefts fufficient directions for attempting the difcovery, he is faid, as the next very fenfible ftep, to have chofen na- tives of Ethiopia as the likeliefl people to fucceed in the fearch he had commanded them to make : —

Summits


 * Vol. II, b. u ( chap. v.