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THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 615
The firft in latter days who vifitcd Abyflinia was a monk, and at the fame time a merchant ; he was fent by Nonnofus, ambafTador of the emperor Juttin, in the fifth year of the reign of that prince, that is A. D. 522. He is called Cofmas the hermit, as alfo Indoplauftes. Many have thought that this name was given him from his having travelled much in India, properly fo called ; but we have no evidence that Cof- mas was ever in the Afiatic India, and I rather imagine he obtained his name from his travels in Abyflinia, called by the ancients India ; he went as far as Axum, and leems to have paid proper attention to the difference of climates, names, and fituations of places, but he arrived not at the Nile, nor did he attempt it. The province of the Agows was probably at that time inacceffible, as the court was then in Tigre at Axum, a coniiderable diftance beyond the Tacazze, and is to the eailward of it.
None of the Poriuguefe who firfl arrived in Abyfilnia, neither Covillan, Rcd'-rigo de Lima, Chriflopher de Gama, nor the patriarch Afphonfb Mendes, ever faw, or indeed pre- tended to have feen, the fource of the Nile. At hit, in the reign of ZaDenghel, came Peter Paez, who laid claim to this honour ; how far his pretenfions are juil I am now going to confider. — Paez has left a hiilory of the million, and fome remarkable occurrences that happened in that country, in two thick volumes octavo, clofely written in a plain ftile 5 copies of this work were circulated through every college and feminary of Jefuits that exiited in his time, and which, have been everywhere found in their libraries fince the dif- grace of that learned body.
Athanasius.
