: its waters, after the first rise,
run to the eastward for about a musket-shot, then turning to the north,
continue hidden in the grass and weeds for about a quarter of a league,
and discover themselves for the first time among some rocks--a sight not
to be enjoyed without some pleasure by those who have read the fabulous
accounts of this stream delivered by the ancients, and the vain
conjectures and reasonings which have been formed upon its original, the
nature of its water, its cataracts, and its inundations, all which we are
now entirely acquainted with and eye-witnesses of.

Many interpreters of the Holy Scriptures pretend that Gihon, mentioned in
Genesis, is no other than the Nile, which encompasseth all AEthiopia; but
as the Gihon had its source from the terrestrial paradise, and we know
that the Nile rises in the country of the Agaus, it will be found, I
believe, no small difficulty to conceive how the same river could arise
from two sources so distant from each other, or how a river from so low a
source should spring up and appear in a place perhaps the highest in the
world: for if we consider that Arabia and Palestine are in their
situation almost level with Egypt; that Egypt is as low, if compared with
the kingdom of Dambia, as the deepest valley in regard of the highest
mountain; that the province of Sacala is yet more elevated than Dambia;
that the waters of the Nile must either pass under the Red Sea, or take a
great compass about, we shall find it hard to conceive such an attractive
power in the earth as may be able to make the waters rise through the
obstruction of so much sand from places so low to the most lofty region
of AEthiopia.

But leaving these difficulties, let us go on to describe the course of
the Nile. It rolls away from its source with so inconsiderable a
current, that it appears unlikely to escape being dried up by the hot
season, but soon receiving an increase from the Gemma, the Keltu, the
Bransu, and other less rivers, it is of such a breadth in the plain of
Boad, which is not above three days' journey from its source, that a ball
shot from a musket will scarce fly from one bank to the other. Here it
begins to run northwards, deflecting, however, a little towards the east,
for the space of nine or ten leagues, and then enters the so much talked
of Lake of Dambia, called by the natives Bahar Sena, the Resemblance of
the Sea, or Bahar Dambia, the Sea of Dambia. It crosses this lake on