Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/664

 640 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

tain of the Nile to be 36° $5' 30" eait of the meridian of Greenwich.

The night of the 4th, that very night of my arrival, me- lancholy reflections upon my prefent ftate, the doubtful- nefs of my return in fafety, were I permitted to make the attempt, and the fears that even this would be refufed, ac- cording to the rule obferved in Abyfiinia with all travellers who have once entered the kingdom ; the confcioufnefs of the pain that I was then occafioning to many worthy indi- viduals, expecting daily that information concerning my fituation which it was not in my power to give them ; fome other thoughts, perhaps, Hill nearer the heart than thofe, crowded upon my mind, and forbade all approach of fleep.

I was, at that very moment, in poffeiiion of what had, for many years, been the principal objecl: of my ambition and willies : indifference, which from the ufual infirmity of human nature follows, at leafl for a time, complete en- joyment, had taken place of it. The marm, and the foun- tains, upon comparifon with the rife of many of our rivers, became now a trifling objecl: in my fight. I remembered that magnificent fcene in my own native country, where the Tweed, Clyde, and Annan rife in one hill ; three rivers, as I now thought, not inferior to the Nile in beauty, prefer- able to it in the cultivation of thofe countries through which they flow ; fuperior, vaflly fuperior to it in the virtues and qualities of the inhabitants, and in the beauty of its flocks; crowding its paftures in peace, without fear of violence from man or beafb I had feen the rife of the Rhine and Rhone, and the more magnificent fources of the Soane ; 1 began, in 1 my