722 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER
courfe of the Nile is before the reader ; and it is plain from thence, that the whole rain in AbyfTinia muft now go, and ever has gone down into Egypt, and yet the people are very fafe in their houfes, and very feldom is the whole land of Egypt compleatly overflowed : and it is by no means lefs certain from the fame infpection, that, unlefs a river as large as the Nile, conftantly full, having its rife in countries fubject to perpetual rains, and pouring its ftream, which never decreafes, into that river, as the Abiad does at Halfaia, all the waters in Abyilinia col- lected in the Nile would not be fufhcient to pafs its fcanty ftream through the burning deferts of Nubia and the Barabra, fo as it mould be of any utility when arrived in Egypt.
The next falfehood in point of fact is that of the monk Gregory, who fays that this left branch of the Nile parts from it, after having paffed the kingdom of Dongola into Nubia, after which it runs through Elvah, and fo down the defert into the Mediterranean, between the Cyrenaicum and Alexandria, Now, nrft, we know, from the authority of all antiquity, that there is not a defert more deftitute of rivers than that of the Thebaid. This want of water (not the diftance) made the voyage to the temple of Ju- piter Ammon an enterprife next to defperate, and fo wor- thy of Alexander, who never, however, met a river in his way ; had there been there fuch a ftream, there could be no doubt that the banks of it would have been fully as well inhabited as thofe of the Nile, and the Thebaid confequently no defert.. Befides the caravans, which for
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