THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 651
enters into the 18th degree, Taurus, and after returning
fouthward into the 14th degree of the Lion. Lucan fays
the fame : —
-Late tibi gurgite mpto
Ambit ur nigris Mero'e ' facunda colonis^ Lata comis hebeni ; quce quamvis arbor e multa Frondeat) ajlatem nulla fibi mitigat umbra : Linea tarn reffum mundiferit ilia Lconem.
Now Gojam, being in lat. io°, could never anfwer this de- fcription.
But there are in thefe lines two circumftances which are peculiar to the peninfula of Atbara, or Meroe, and defcri- bed as fuch by the poet. The firft is, the inhabitants of Me- roe were black, fuch were the Gymnofophifts, the firft phi- lofophers and inhabitants of this ifland, and fuch they have ever been down to the Saracen conquer!. On the o- ther hand, nobody will pretend to fay that the people of Gojam are black ; they are long-haired, and of as fair a com- plexion as other Abyffinians ; nor was it ever fuppofed that they had philofophers or fcience among them before the jefuits arrived in the country.
The next circumftance, peculiar to Meroe, is, that the ebo- ny-tree grew there, which is fpread all over the peninfula of Atbara, and out of it this tree is not found, (as far as I know) unlefs a few trees in the province of Kuara, in the low and northermoft part of it ; a country, for its intolerable heat, not inferior to that of Atbara, and contiguous to it ; but in
4 N z Gojam,
