His Hide Is So Hard That A Musket
Fired Close To Him Can Only Make A Slight Impression, And The Best
Tempered Lances Pushed Forcibly Against Him Are Either Blunted Or
Shivered, Unless The Assailant Has The Skill To Make His Thrust At
Certain Parts Which Are More Tender.
There is great danger in
meeting him, and the best way is, upon such an accident, to step
aside and let him pass by.
The flesh of this animal doth not differ
from that of a cow, except that it is blacker and harder to digest.
The ignorance which we have hitherto been in of the original of the
Nile hath given many authors an opportunity of presenting us very
gravely with their various systems and conjectures about the nature
of its waters, and the reason of its overflows.
It is easy to observe how many empty hypotheses and idle reasonings
the phenomena of this river have put mankind to the expense of. Yet
there are people so bigoted to antiquity, as not to pay any regard
to the relation of travellers who have been upon the spot, and by
the evidence of their eyes can confute all that the ancients have
written. It was difficult, it was even impossible, to arrive at the
source of the Nile by tracing its channel from the mouth; and all
who ever attempted it, having been stopped by the cataracts, and
imagining none that followed them could pass farther, have taken the
liberty of entertaining us with their own fictions.
It is to be remembered likewise that neither the Greeks nor Romans,
from whom we have received all our information, ever carried their
arms into this part of the world, or ever heard of multitudes of
nations that dwell upon the banks of this vast river; that the
countries where the Nile rises, and those through which it runs,
have no inhabitants but what are savage and uncivilised; that before
they could arrive at its head, they must surmount the insuperable
obstacles of impassable forests, inaccessible cliffs, and deserts
crowded with beasts of prey, fierce by nature, and raging for want
of sustenance. 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.
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