Yet If They Who Endeavoured With So Much Ardour To
Discover The Spring Of This River Had Landed At Mazna
On the coast
of the Red Sea, and marched a little more to the south than the
south-west, they
Might perhaps have gratified their curiosity at
less expense, and in about twenty days might have enjoyed the
desired sight of the sources of the Nile.
But this discovery was reserved for the invincible bravery of our
noble countrymen, who, not discouraged by the dangers of a
navigation in seas never explored before, have subdued kingdoms and
empires where the Greek and Roman greatness, where the names of
Caesar and Alexander, were never heard of; who have demolished the
airy fabrics of renowned hypotheses, and detected those fables which
the ancients rather chose to invent of the sources of the Nile than
to confess their ignorance. I cannot help suspending my narration
to reflect a little on the ridiculous speculations of those swelling
philosophers, whose arrogance would prescribe laws to nature, and
subject those astonishing effects, which we behold daily, to their
idle reasonings and chimerical rules. Presumptuous imagination!
that has given being to such numbers of books, and patrons to so
many various opinions about the overflows of the Nile. Some of
these theorists have been pleased to declare it as their favourite
notion that this inundation is caused by high winds which stop the
current, and so force the water to rise above its banks, and spread
over all Egypt.
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