Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/635

 THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 6it

neck of land further to the fouth ; and though Eudoxus had failed from the Red Sea around the Cape of Good Hope, which mull have totally deftroyed the pombility of the ex- igence of that land fuppofed to join the two continents, ra- ther than allow this, they neglected the information of this navigator, and treated it as a fable.

It was the conflant opinion of the Greeks, that no river could rife in the torrid zone, as alfo, that the melting of fnow was the caufe of the overflowing of all rivers in the heat of fummer, and fo of the Nile among the reft ; when, therefore, Alexander heard from his difcoverers, that the Nile,about latitude 9°,ran ftraightto the eaft,and returned no more, he imagined the liver's courfe was eallward through the imaginary neck of land inclofmg the imaginary lake, and joining the peninfula of India, and that the river, after it had croiled, continued north till it came within reach of the thawing of the mows of Mount Caucafus ; and this was alfo the opinion of Ptolemy the geographer.

Ptolemy PniLADELPHUS,the fecond of thofe princes who had fucceeded to the throne of Alexander in Egypt, was the next who marched into Ethiopia with an army againfl the Shangalla. His object was not only to difcover the fource of the Nile, but alfo to procure a perpetual fupply of ele- phants to enable him to cope with the kings of Syria. The fuccefs of this expedition we have related in the flrfl vo- lume, book ii. chap. v.

Ptolemy Evergetes, his fucccfTor, in the 27th year of his reign, being in peace with all his neighbours, under- took an expedition to Ethiopia. His defign was certainly

4H2 to