The Annual Review and History of Literature

books, perhaps, the best calculated to excite a strong and general interest in the reading part of the community; every class of which, from the mere lounger, with whom reading is only a creditable kind of idleness, to the philosopher, who derives from books the materials of useful contemplation, is almost equally inter ested in the faithful narrative of the traveller. Nor is there any reason to fear that this department of literature should ever become exhausted; accidental causes may superinduce a temporary dearth, but the curiosity of the public will never fail to encourage and recompence those adventurous spirits, who, after penetrating into foreign countries, to gratify their own love of novelty, will allow their fellow countrymen to indulge theirs from the same source. The navigator, it is true, must ere long find his employment, as far as regards the discovery of new lands, almost entirely concluded, and with much more reason than Alexander may complain of the diminutiveness of the globe that he is destined to inhabit; but this very circumstance will probably conduce to the public benefit, by withdrawing the researches of science. from the barren ocean and the sea-beat shore, and encouraging them to penetrate the vast tracts of land, as yet, almost wholly unknown to Europeans, though inhabited by man in various stages of civilization, and presenting, to the lover of nature, an inex< haustible store of the wonderful, the beautiful, and the new.

Of America, though under the dominion of Europe, and colonies from Europe, we know less than even of Africa; it is therefore with peculiar satisfaction, that we perceive an increasing curiosity concerning the transatlantic Continent, and that it begins to attract the attention of travellers: no less than six of the books noticed in the present chapter, refer to this quarter of the world, and although the information ANN. REV. VOL. IV,

which they contain is imperfect, and probably, in many respects inaccurate, yet we are inclined to welcome them perhaps more than they deserve, as good omens, and the harbingers of better and more accurate researches.

Political circumstances have excluded British travellers from the territories of France and her allies; and the other parts of the continent being but little attractive' Mr. Carr's northern summer, being a tour through Norway and Sweden to Petersburgh, is the only account worth mentioning of any part of Europe that has issued, during the last year, from the English press.

The discussions in parliament respecting Pulo-Penang (Prince of Wales's Island), have given birth to two small topographical descriptions of this little island. The solitary rock of St. Helena has also found a sensible and able historian.

Captain Beaver's African memoranda merit the serious study of all future leaders of colonies to the western coast of that continent; and Mr. Turnbull's voyage round the world deserves mention, as being the latest account of the singular political changes that are going on in the Sandwich Islands, and some other of the Polynesian groups.

ART. I. Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, in the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773. By JAMES BRUCE of Kinnaird, Esq. F. R. S 7 Vols. 8vo. and I 4to. Vol. of Plates. The Second Edition, corrected and enlarged; to which is prefixed a Life of the Author.

WAS Bruce ever in Abyssinia, and are the sources which he describes, the real sources of the Nile? These facts have been questioned with little urbanity, little candour, and much malevolence.

The first fact will now no longer be contradicted. After the positive testimony which sir William Jones accidentally found in India, he who denies that Bruce was in Abyssinia, and as he himself states, in high favour at Gondar, must be a wilful calumniator. But did he visit the sources of the Nile? "The Bahr el Azrek, or Blue River, says Mr. Pinkerton, was mistaken for the real Nile by the Portugueze writers Alvarez, Tellez, &c. probably misled by the vain glory of the Abyssinians; though it was well known to the ancients as quite a distinct river, the Astapus, flowing into the Nile, from the Coloe Palus, now the lake of Dembea. Mr. Bruce's vanity led him to adopt the same mistake."

That the Abyssinian branch is the Astapus of the ancients is sufficiently clear, and also that Herodotus and Ptolomy considered the Bahar el Abiad as the Nile. But it is equally certain that the Abyssinians themselves consider their branch to be the Nile; as such it is desribed by the Jesuits and laid down in the map of Balthezar Tellez; this was the opinion of Ludolphus, this was the

general opinion in Europe when Bruce set out upon his travels, and this opinion he found in Abyssinia, in Atbara, and in Nubia, not only in the country where the Bahar el Asrak rises, but also where it joins the other stream. There is decisive proof that this is not a mere boast of national vanity among the Abyssinians, but actually and bona fide their belief, a received opinion upon which they have formed a great, though visionary, political project, which they once proceeded to put in practice. Lalibala began to divert the course of his Nile for the purpose of famishing Egypt: in the first intercourse which took place between the Portugueze and the Abyssinians this project was renewed, and had Alboquerque lived, there can be no doubt but that the execution would have been again attempted.

If Bruce, therefore, has mistaken the Astapus for the Nile, it is a very pardonable mistake, for if there be not authority sufficient to establish his opinion, there is surely enough to excuse his error.

The question itself, however, is infinitesimally insignificant. The Bahar el Asrak, and the Bahar el Abiad, meet and form the Nile; which is to be called the Nile before the junction? The dispute is not concerning the course of the water, but concerning the name. If indeed the

true Nile had been regularly christened, and a certificate from the church register could be produced, the point might be decided. But to whom does the right of godfathership belong in this case? Why to the Donga and Tuclawi, the people of the Deir and Tuggula, more than to the Abyssinians and the Agows of Geesh? They who reside about the junction, call the united stream by the name of the Abyssinian branch: if authority is to determine the point, where can we go for a better jury than to the place itself? The Bahar el Abiad is the larger branch: Bruce expressly says that it is so, but his elitor very properly observes, if they who dwell by the junction continue the name of Bahar el Asrak after it has joined a larger branch, it is plain that they consider the larger branch as received into the smaller, not the smaller as received into the larger. It is the straight course which determines these unlettered surveyors. Striking instances, he says, occur in our own country, of rivers being named from the inferior source, and he adduces a case in point. The largest river in Scotland is formed by the Teith and the Forth, the latter of which is a stream as much inferior to the former as the Bahar el Asrak to the Bahar el Abiad. The inferior stream, however, in spite of the decision of several respectable writers in favour of the Teith, obtains the name of the great river, because it runs in the same line. A river must have as many sources as a man has grandfathers in the fiftieth degree, and in the one case as well as in the other we trace to the straightest line.

True it is that Bruce himself consider

ed the discovery of the sources of the Nile as a thing of great importance; honourable not only to himself but to his age and country, and to the king under whose reign it was accomplished. In this respect he was as absurd as his critics. But this folly does not in the slightest degree detrack from the value of his work. The journey was not the less important because the object was ridiculous, as the value of an action is not to be estimated by the motive of the agent, though the merit of the agent is. Whatever be the name of a rivulet in Geesh,

we are equally interested by the picture of society in Abyssinia. A gap in history has been filled up.

There remains yet a third questiondid Bruce actually visit these sources in Geesh, or has he merely copied the Jesuits accounts, and the Jesuits map? for whoever has inspected both can have not the smallest doubt, that in the map of Balthezar Tellez, these sources, and the course, of the river, through the lake Dembea, are laid down precisely as they are by the English traveller. This question has been for ever settled by Mr. Murray, the editor of the present edition, whose undeviating candour and indefatigable industry, cannot be too highly commended. Of the journey to the sources, he tells us, there exist, besides the narrative in Mr. Bruce's own words, written as he went along, the complete journal by Balugani in Italian, and many of the strips of paper which he carried in his hand, on which he wrote with a pencil the history of each day, before he entered it in the journal at night. We will transcribe that part of Balugani's journal which describes the springs, because it sets the question for ever at rest.

"At three o'clock we have arrived at the church of St. Michael, above the sources; and at an eighth of a mile, descending from this into the plain, are found the fountains of the called Assua, half a mile to the S. S. E. of these Nile. We have halted in the valley (or plain) fountains.

Our journey to day has been six hours, computed at twelve miles.

"The sum of the whole way, from Gon dar to the fountains of the Nile is about one hundred and eleven miles.

"The fountains of the Nile are three.

One of them will be four palins in diameneither its depth nor true extent, it not being ter; but it is all full of rushes, and shews possible to introduce into it any sounding instrument.

"The second will be five paces distant from the first to the south, a little west ; and will be about twelve inches diameter at the mouth, but within about four palms, and it is eight feet three inches deep.

from the first, to S. S. W.; its mouth is The third will be twelve paces distant somewhat larger than that of the second, but it is only five feet eight inches deep. The first being the lowest, the water is seen at the level of the earth; but in the other two, the

* It is curious that the river should resemble the Abyssinian Nile in another very remarkable circumstance. The stream of the Teith is distinctly visible in its passage through Lochlubaig, which indeed signifies the Lake of the Winding Stream.

+ This expression is literal, and might be exchanged for is; though computation be in some cases understood,

ground being a little raised, the water remains about eight inches lower than the level of the mouth. All the three may be observed to spring (the word bollire signifies to boil or bubble), but so imperceptibly that it can scarcely be discerned by great attention; and it is false what is said by some, that they spring with a noise out of the ground, rising above it.

"All this place near the fountains produces only grass and rushes; trees are not found, to the distance at least of half a mile on every

side.

On the 5th Nov. the sun's altitude

was 63. 15.

On the 6th Nov. found to be 62. 56. 30.

The latitude of the fountains is 10 degeers 58 min. and 58 sec. The sources of

the Nile are found in the

Agow country, in a province called Sacchala.They are situated in a little valley at the foot of the mountain of Gheesh, by E. N. E. From the fountains to the top of the mountain will be two miles and a half, nearly three. Above the fountains, about one-eighth of a mile distant from them, by N. E. by N. is a church, on the top of a hill, called Kedus Michael, over the fountains. The Nile, rising out of its springs, takes a direction cast for a quarter of a mile Then it turns about to north-east for another half-mile, always in the middle of a plain (vallone), without trees or shrubs, excepting grass and rushes; and in all that space it does not appear to run; but as the earth is very flat, it spreads, and leaves the ground about, marshy, and (in) stagnant (water). From this it begins to run north, and in a short time becomes very rapid, and continues to flow by north-east and north, under the mountain, on which is the church of Mariam Nett, for the space of a mile. Thence it runs north-west about a mile. About that part is the place where they the Abay, to go to Gondar, coming from the fountains, and the church will be a quarter of a mile to the east distant from this passage. After having run the forementioned mile north-west, it turns about west, and a little after south-west, then south south-west, then south, always retreating backwards towards its sources in all that course. From the place where it begins to go west till it runs south will be about four miles and a half. In this last place it passes between two mountains, and begins to retreat, by going down by the way of west, north-west, north, &c. until it comes to cross the lake in an angle of it; it (then) passes near to Dara, and returning south makes the circle of Gojam, after which it descends (towards the north).

pass

"Two miles before arriving at the place where it changes its course reverting towards its sources, are seen three small streams, one of which comes from the east, another from the south-east, and another from the south south-east; the two first of these arise to the north-east of the church of St. Michael Gheesh, about somewhat less than one-eighth

of a mile's distance. The first of these runs nearly parallel to the Nile, recciving about half a mile from its source the second, and them about three miles after the third; and about a mile and a half after that discharges itself into the Nile. The Nile in that place begins to grow large; because it receives there other small streams which come from the north and west.”

A minute account follows of the bearings of the adjoining places, as marked from the top of the mountain of Geesh. The manuscript from which this is printed is in Italian, in Balugani's hand-writing, on the smooth cream-coloured cotton paper of the east. It contains a completé detail of the hours and days in which they travelled; of the villages, rivers, mountains, and in short, of every remarkable object they met with from their leaving Gondar, Sunday twenty-eighth October, 1770, at half after nine A. M. till their return, Sunday eighteenth Nov. one o’clock P. M. in the same year.

But

Such evidence is unanswerable. could any thing be more absurd than to admit that Bruce was in Abyssinia, and yet to deny that he visited the sources of the Abyssinian Nile? These sources, says Mr. Pinkerton, were in the seventeenth century accurately described by Payz, a Portugueze missionary, whose account was published by Kircher and Isaac Vossius, and has in our times been very minutely copied by Bruce, as Hartman has explained by printing the two accounts in parallel columns. Mr. Murray has confuted the charge in the best possible manner, without condescending to notice it.

He has printed the passage as it stands in Kircher, and added a literal translation. In justice to him and to Bruce, we shall copy the two accounts.

"The source of the Nile is situated in the western part of the kingdom of Goyam, in the upper (or highest) part of a valley, which resembles a large plain, surrounded on every side with ridges of hills. A. D. 1618, April 21st. when I was living in this kingdoin along with the emperor and his army, I ascended this place, viewed every thing diligently, and found at first two round fountains there, both above four palms in diameter, and with the greatest pleasure of mind saw what Cyrus, king of the Persians, Cambyses, Alexander the Great, and the famous Julius Cæsar, could obtain by no wishes. The water of the source is very clear and light, and agreeable to the taste; yet it must be known that these two fountains of the source have no outlet in the uppermost part of the plain of the mountain, but at the foot of the

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