Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/650

 ■Si6 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

I had parted, or which I had feen at a fmall diflance out of; the road, to which I may add every river, an immenfe num- ber oF which I had crofled between Gondar and Gee(li > whither I was going. The reader, upon the infpection or' this fmall map, will form fome, but a very inadequate idea of the immenfe labour it colt me : However, the remit, when I arrived at Gondar, amply rewarded me for my pains, upon comparing my route by the compafs, to what it came to be when afcertained by obfervation ; I found my error of computation upon the whole to be fomething more than 9 miles in latitude, and very nearly 7 in longitude ; an error not perceptible in the journey upon any reduced fcale, and very immaterial to all purpofes of geography in any large one.

Now Peter Paez, or any man laying claim to a difcovery fo long and fo ardently defired, mould furely have done the fame ; efpecially as from Gorgora he had little more than half of the journal to keep. But if it were true, that he made the difcovery which Kircher attributes to him, rtill, for want of this neceiTary attention, he has left the world in the darknefs he found it; he travelled like a thief, difcover- ed that fecret fource, and took a peep at it, then covered it again as if he had been afFrightened at the fight of it.

Ludolf and Voflius are very merry, without mentioning names, with this ftory of the difcovery,, which they think Kircher makes for Peter Paez, whom they call the River Finder: they fay, it is extremely laughable to think, that the emperor of Abyflinia brought a Jefuit of Europe to be the antiquary of his country, and to inftruc"t him firft, that the fountains of the Nile were in his dominions, and in what 3 part