Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/749

 THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 723

ages paHed between Egypt and Sennaar, muft have feen this river, and drunk of it; fo muft the travellers, in the beginning of this century, Poncet and M. du Roule. They were both at Elvah ; and, paffing through the dreary deferts of Sclima, they muft have gone along its fide, and croffed it, where it parted from the Nile in their journey to Sen- naar. Whereas we know they never faw running water from the time they left the Nile at Siout in Egypt, till they fell in again with it at Mofcho, during which period they had nothing but well water, which they carried in fkins with them.

The diftrid of Elvah is the Oafis Magna and Oafis Parva of the ancients; large' plentiful fprings breaking out in the middle of the burning fands, and running conftantly with- out diminution, have invited inhabitants to flock around them. Thefe conduding^off the water that fpills over the fountain by trenches, the neighbouring lands have quickly produced a plentiful vegetation : gardens and verdure are fpread on every fide, large groves of palm tree have been planted, and the overflowings of every fountain have pro- duced a little paradife, like fo many beautiful and fruitful iflands amidil an immenfe ocean.

The coaft of the Mediterranean, from the Cyrenaicum or Ptolemaid (that is, the coaft from Bengazi, or Derna, to Alexandria) is well known by the {hipping of every nation ; but what pilot or paflenger ever faw this magnificent wa- tering-place in that defert coaft, where this branch of the Nile comes down into the Mediterranean ? Befides, the au- thor of this fable betrays his ignorance in the very begin-

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