Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/380

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35 6 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER

The fecond happened on the 13th year^>f the reign of Claudius, as the Abyflinian account ftates it. Claudius fuc- ceeded to the crown in the 1540, and the 13th vear of his reign will fall to be on the 1553. Now we find f-u S eclipfe did happen in the fame clear feafon of the year, ti^t is, on the 24th of January 1553, lb in this fecond inlta^ ce our chronology is perfectly correct.

The thir^ eclipfe of the fun happened in the 7th year c£ the reign of Yafous II. in ivu^abit, the feventh month of ttu. Abvflinians. Now Yafous came to the crown in 1729, fo that the 7th year of his reign will be in 1736, and on the 4th day of Odtober, anfwering to the 8th day of the month Tekemt, N. S. in that year, we fee this eclipfe obferved in Europe.

As a further confirmation of this, we have ftated the par- ticulars of a comet which, the Abyflinian annals fay, ap- peared at Gondar in the month of November, in the 9th year of the reign of Yafous I. and as this comet was ob- ferved in Europe to have come to its perihelion in Decem- ber 1689, and as that year, according to our account, was really the 9 th of that king's reign, no further proof of the exadnefs of our chronology can pollibly be required. By means of thefe obfervations, counting backward to the rime of Icon Amlac, and again forward to the death of Joas, which happened in 1768, and affigning to each prince the number of years that his own hiftorians fay he reigned, I have, in the molt unexceptionable manner that I can devife, fettled the chronology of this country; and the exacl: agree- ment it hath with all the remarkable events, regularly and iumciently vouched, plainly fhewsthe accuracy of this me-

2 thod.