In the following map we see a reproduction of Sebastian Cabot’s map in the sixteenth century. I have omitted the pictures of elephants and crocodiles, great emperors and dwarfs, which are freely scattered over the map with somewhat odd taste. The three lakes have arranged themselves in line again, and the Mountains of the Moon are picturesquely banked at the top head of all the streams, but the continent evidently suggests unsteadiness generally, judging from the form of it.
That from the sixteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century very little further knowledge respecting the sources of the Nile was known may be proved by the map of my school-days, which follows. There is a distinct retrogression by the determined stupidity of the map-maker. All that we had gathered since the days of old Homer down to the seventeenth century—all the lakes are swept away—the Mountains of the Moon run from about 5° to about 10° north of the equator, and extend from Long. 20° to the Gulf of Aden. We simply owe our ignorance to the map-makers. We no sooner discover some natural feature than it is removed in a next issue.