Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/675

 THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 651

enters into the 18th degree, Taurus, and after returning

fouthward into the 14th degree of the Lion. Lucan fays

the fame : —

-Late tibi gurgite mpto

Ambit ur nigris Mero'e ' facunda colonis^ Lata comis hebeni ; quce quamvis arbor e multa Frondeat) ajlatem nulla fibi mitigat umbra : Linea tarn reffum mundiferit ilia Lconem.

Now Gojam, being in lat. io°, could never anfwer this de- fcription.

But there are in thefe lines two circumftances which are peculiar to the peninfula of Atbara, or Meroe, and defcri- bed as fuch by the poet. The firft is, the inhabitants of Me- roe were black, fuch were the Gymnofophifts, the firft phi- lofophers and inhabitants of this ifland, and fuch they have ever been down to the Saracen conquer!. On the o- ther hand, nobody will pretend to fay that the people of Gojam are black ; they are long-haired, and of as fair a com- plexion as other Abyffinians ; nor was it ever fuppofed that they had philofophers or fcience among them before the jefuits arrived in the country.

The next circumftance, peculiar to Meroe, is, that the ebo- ny-tree grew there, which is fpread all over the peninfula of Atbara, and out of it this tree is not found, (as far as I know) unlefs a few trees in the province of Kuara, in the low and northermoft part of it ; a country, for its intolerable heat, not inferior to that of Atbara, and contiguous to it ; but in

4 N z Gojam,