Again, in lat. 9° in the kingdom of Gingero, the Zebeé runs south, or south-east, into the inner Ethiopia, as do also many other rivers, and, as I have heard from the natives of that country, empty themselves into a lake, as those on the north of the Line do into the lake Tzana; thence distribute their waters to the east and to the west. These become the heads of great rivers that run through the interior countries of Ethiopia (corresponding to the sea-coast of Melinda and Mombaza) into the Indian Ocean, whilst, on the westward, they are the origin of the vast streams that fall into the Atlantic, passing through Benin and Congo, southward of the river Gambea, and the Sierraleona.
In short, the periodical rains from the tropic of Capricorn to the Line, being in equal quantity with those that fall between the Line and the tropic of Cancer, it is plain, that if the land of Ethiopia sloped equally from the Line southward and northward, half of the rains that fall on each side would go north, and half south, but as the ground from 5° N. declines all southward, it follows that the river which runs to the southward must be equal to those that run to the northward, plus the rain that falls in the 5° north latitude, where the ground begins to slope to the southward, and there can be little doubt this is at least one of the reasons why there are in the southern continent so many rivers larger than the Nile that run both into the Indian and Atlantic Oceans.
From this very true and sensible relation handed to us by Herodotus, from the authority of the secretary of Minerva, the Nubian geographer has framed a fiction of his own, which is, that the river Nile divides itself into two branches, one of which runs into Egypt northward, and one through the country of the negroes westward, into the Atlantic Ocean. And this opinion has been greedily adopted by M. Ludolf[180], who cites the authority of Leo Africanus, and that of his monk Gregory, both of them, in these respects, fully as much mistaken as the Nubian geographer himself. M. Ludolf, after quoting a passage of Pliny, tells us that he had consulted the famous Bochart upon that subject whether the Nile and the Niger (the river that runs through Nigritia into the Western Ocean) were one and the same river? The famous Bochart answers him peremptorily in the true spirit of a schoolman,—That there is nothing more certain than that the Niger is a part of the river Nile. With great submission, however, I must venture to say there is not the least foundation for this assertion.
Pliny seems the first who gave rise to it, but he speaks modestly upon the subject, giving his reasons as he goes along. “Nigri fluvio eadem natura, quæ Nilo, calamum & papyrum, & easdem gignit animantes, iisdemque temporibus augescit.[181]” That it has the same soil from which the Nile takes its colour, the water is the same in taste, produces the same reeds, and especially the papyrus; has the same animals in it, such as the crocodile and hippopotamus, and overflows at the same season; this is saying nothing but what may be applied with equal truth to every other river between the northern tropic and the Line; but the other two authors, the Nubian and the monk, assert each of them a direct falsehood. The Nubian says, that if the Nile carried all the rains that fall in Abyssinia down into Egypt, the people would not be safe in their houses. To this I answer by a matter of fact, the map of the whole course of the Nile is before the reader; and it is plain from thence, that the whole rain in Abyssinia must now go, and ever has gone down into Egypt, and yet the people are very safe in their houses, and very seldom is the whole land of Egypt compleatly overflowed: and it is by no means less certain from the same inspection, that, unless a river as large as the Nile, constantly full, having its rise in countries subject to perpetual rains, and pouring its stream, which never decreases, into that river, as the Abiad does at Halfaia, all the waters in Abyssinia collected in the Nile would not be sufficient to pass its scanty stream through the burning deserts of Nubia and the Barabra, so as it should be of any utility when arrived in Egypt.
The next falsehood in point of fact is that of the monk Gregory, who says that this left branch of the Nile parts from it, after having passed the kingdom of Dongola into Nubia, after which it runs through Elvah, and so down the desert into the Mediterranean, between the Cyrenaicum and Alexandria. Now, first, we know, from the authority of all antiquity, that there is not a desert more destitute of rivers than that of the Thebaid. This want of water (not the distance) made the voyage to the temple of Jupiter Ammon an enterprise next to desperate, and so worthy of Alexander, who never, however, met a river in his way; had there been there such a stream, there could be no doubt that the banks of it would have been fully as well inhabited as those of the Nile, and the Thebaid consequently no desert. Besides the caravans, which for ages passed between Egypt and Sennaar, must have seen this river, and drunk of it; so must the travellers, in the beginning of this century, Poncet and M. du Roule. They were both at Elvah; and, passing through the dreary deserts of Selima, they must have gone along its side, and crossed it, where it parted from the Nile in their journey to Sennaar. Whereas we know they never saw running water from the time they left the Nile at Siout in Egypt, till they fell in again with it at Moscho, during which period they had nothing but well water, which they carried in skins with them.
The district of Elvah is the Oasis Magna and Oasis Parva of the ancients; large plentiful springs breaking out in the middle of the burning sands, and running constantly without diminution, have invited inhabitants to flock around them. These conducting off the water that spills over the fountain by trenches, the neighbouring lands have quickly produced a plentiful vegetation: gardens and verdure are spread on every side, large groves of palm tree have been planted, and the overflowings of every fountain have produced a little paradise, like so many beautiful and fruitful islands amidst an immense ocean.
The coast of the Mediterranean, from the Cyrenaicum or Ptolemaid (that is, the coast from Bengazi, or Derna, to Alexandria) is well known by the shipping of every nation; but what pilot or passenger ever saw this magnificent watering-place in that desert coast, where this branch of the Nile comes down into the Mediterranean? Besides, the author of this fable betrays his ignorance in the very beginning, where he derives this left branch of the Nile from the principal river, and says, that, after passing the kingdom of Dongola, it enters Nubia. Now, when it entered Dongola it must have already passed Nubia, for Dongola is the capital of the Barabra, every inch of which is to the northward of Nubia. I do not know worse guides in the geography of Africa than Leo Africanus and the Nubian geographer. I believe them both impostors, and the commentators upon them have greatly increased by their own conjectures, the confusion and errors which the text has everywhere occasioned.
As far as I have been ever able to learn, by a very diligent and cautious inquiry, from the inhabitants of the neighbouring countries, I believe the origin of the Niger is in lat. 12° north, and in long. 30° from the meridian of Greenwich nearly; that it is composed of various rivers falling down the sides of very high mountains, called Dyre and Tegla; and runs straight west into the heart of Africa. I conclude also, that this river (though it has abundant supply from every mountain) is very much diminished by evaporation, running in a long course upon the very limits of the tropical rains, when entire, under the name of Senega; or, perhaps, when divided under those of Senega and Gambia, it loses itself in the Atlantic Ocean. I conceive also, that, as Pliny says, it has the same taste and natural productions with the Nile, because it runs in the same climate, and like that river owes, if not its existence, yet certainly its increase and fulness to the same cause, the tropical rains in the northern hemisphere falling from high mountains.
I hope I have now fully exhausted every subject worthy of inquiry as to the place where the fountains of the Nile are situated, also as to its course and various names, the different countries through which it flows, the true cause, and every thing curious attending its inundations; and that as, in old times, Caput Nili Quærere, to seek the source of the Nile, was a proverb in use to signify the impossibility of an attempt, it may hereafter be applied, with as much reason, to denote the inutility of any such undertakings.