On Monday the 5th of November, the day after my arrival at Geesh, the weather perfectly clear, cloudless, and nearly calm, in all respects well adapted to observation, being extremely anxious to ascertain, beyond the power of controversy, the precise spot on the globe that this fountain had so long occupied unknown, I pitched my tent on the north edge of the cliff, immediately above the priest’s house, having verified the instrument with all the care possible, both at the zenith and horizon. With a brass quadrant of three feet radius, by one meridian altitude of the sun’s upper limb, all necessary æquations and deductions considered, I determined the latitude of the place of observation to be 10° 59´ 11´´; and by another observation of the same kind made on the 6th, 10° 59´ 8´´; after which, by a medium of thirty-three observations of stars, the largest and nearest, the first vertical, I found the latitude to be 10° 59´ 10´´; a mean of which being 10° 59´ 9½´´, say 10° 59´ 10´´; and if we should be so unnecessarily scrupulous as to add 15´´ for the measured distance the place of the tent was south of the altar, then we shall have 10° 59´ 25´´ in round numbers, for the exact latitude of the principal fountain of the Nile, though the Jesuits have supposed it, 12° N. by a random guess; but this being nearly the latitude of Gondar, the capital from which they set out, shews plainly they knew not the precise latitude of either of these places.
On the 7th of November I was fortunate enough to be in time for the observation of an immersion of the first satellite of Jupiter, the last visible here before that planet’s conjunction with the sun. My situation was very unfavourable, my view of the heavens being every way interrupted by a thick grove of bamboo canes, with high and shady trees growing upon the head of the precipice. Jupiter was low, and the prodigious mass of that beautiful mountain of Geesh, bade fair to hide him before our business was done; I was therefore obliged to remove my telescope up to the edge of the cliff, after which, the weather being perfectly favourable, I had as fair and distinct a view of the planet as I could desire, and from that observation I did conclude unalterably the longitude of the chief fountain of the Nile to be 36° 55´ 30´´ east of the meridian of Greenwich.
The night of the 4th, that very night of my arrival, melancholy reflections upon my present state, the doubtfulness of my return in safety, were I permitted to make the attempt, and the fears that even this would be refused, according to the rule observed in Abyssinia with all travellers who have once entered the kingdom; the consciousness of the pain that I was then occasioning to many worthy individuals, expecting daily that information concerning my situation which it was not in my power to give them; some other thoughts, perhaps, still nearer the heart than those, crowded upon my mind, and forbade all approach of sleep.
I was, at that very moment, in possession of what had, for many years, been the principal object of my ambition and wishes: indifference, which from the usual infirmity of human nature follows, at least for a time, complete enjoyment, had taken place of it. The marsh, and the fountains, upon comparison with the rise of many of our rivers, became now a trifling object in my sight. I remembered that magnificent scene in my own native country, where the Tweed, Clyde, and Annan rise in one hill; three rivers, as I now thought, not inferior to the Nile in beauty, preferable to it in the cultivation of those countries through which they flow; superior, vastly superior to it in the virtues and qualities of the inhabitants, and in the beauty of its flocks; crowding its pastures in peace, without fear of violence from man or beast. I had seen the rise of the Rhine and Rhone, and the more magnificent sources of the Soane; I began, in my sorrow, to treat the inquiry about the source of the Nile as a violent effort of a distempered fancy:—
What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her?—
Grief or despondency now rolling upon me like a torrent; relaxed, not refreshed, by unquiet and imperfect sleep, I started from my bed in the utmost agony; I went to the door of my tent; every thing was still; the Nile, at whose head I stood, was not capable either to promote or to interrupt my slumbers, but the coolness and serenity of the night braced my nerves, and chased away those phantoms that, while in bed, had oppressed and tormented me.
It was true, that numerous dangers, hardships, and sorrows had beset me through this half of my excursion; but it was still as true, that another Guide, more powerful than my own courage, health, or understanding, if any of these can be called man’s own, had uniformly protected me in all that tedious half; I found my confidence not abated, that still the same Guide was able to conduct me to my now wished-for home: I immediately resumed my former fortitude, considered the Nile indeed as no more than rising from springs, as all other rivers do, but widely different in this, that it was the palm for three thousand years held out to all the nations in the world as a detur dignissimo, which, in my cool hours, I had thought was worth the attempting at the risk of my life, which I had long either resolved to lose, or lay this discovery, a trophy in which I could have no competitor, for the honour of my country, at the feet of my sovereign, whose servant I was.
I had procured from the English ships, while at Jidda, some quick-silver, perfectly pure, and heavier than the common sort; warming therefore the tube gently at the fire, I filled it with this quick-silver, and, to my great surprise, found that it stood at the height of 22 English inches: suspecting that some air might have insinuated itself into the tube, I laid it by in a warm part of the tent, covered till morning, and returning to bed, slept there profoundly till six, when, satisfied the whole was in perfect order, I found it to stand at 22 English inches; neither did it vary sensibly from that height any of the following days I staid at Geesh and thence I inferred, that, at the sources of the Nile, I was then more than two miles above the level of the sea; a prodigious height, to enjoy a sky perpetually clear, as also a hot sun never over-cast for a moment with clouds from rising to setting.
On the 6th of November, at a quarter past five in the morning, Fahrenheit’s thermometer stood at 44°, at noon 96°, and at sun-set 46°. It was, as to sense, cold at night, and still more so an hour before sun-rise.
The Nile, keeping nearly in the middle of the marsh, runs east for thirty yards, with a very little increase of stream, but perfectly visible, till met by the grassy brink of the land declining from Sacala. This turns it round gradually to the N. E. and then due north; and, in the two miles it flows in that direction, the river receives many small contributions from springs that rise in the banks on each side of it: there are two, particularly one on the hill at the back of St Michael Geesh, the other a little lower than it on the other side, on the ground declining from Sacala, These last-mentioned springs are more than double its quantity; and being arrived under the hill whereon stands the church of Saint Michael Sacala, about two miles from its source, it there becomes a stream that would turn a common mill, shallow, clear, and running over a rocky bottom about three yards wide: this must be understood to be variable according to the season; and the present observations are applicable to the 5th of November, when the rains had ceased for several weeks. There is the ford which we passed going to Geesh, and we crossed it the day of our arrival, in the time of my conversation with Woldo about the sash.