⚫ could want; and, when he went to fee the fources of the Nile and o*ther curiofities, (for he was extreme ly curious) he received every pof* fible affiftance and accommodation from the royal favour; he underftood the languages, and wrote and collected many books, which he carried with him.' It was impoffible for me to doubt, efpecially when he defcribed the perfon of Yakub, that he meant JAMES BRUCE, Efq; who travelled in the drefs of a Syrian phyfician, and probably affumed with judgment, a name well known in Abyffinia; he is still revered on Mount Sinai for his fagacity in difcovering a fpring, of which the monaftery was in great need; he was known at Jedda by Mir Mahommed Huffain, one of the most intelligent Mahommedans in India; and I have feen him mentioned with great regard in a letter from an Arabian merchant at Mokha. It is probable, that he entered Abyffinia by the way of Mufuwwa, a town in the poffefiion of the Mufelmans, and returned through the defert mentioned by Gregory in his defcription of the Nile. We may hope, that Mr Bruce will publish an account of his interesting travels, with a verfion of the book of Enoch, which no one but himfelf can give us with fidelity. By the help of Abyfinian records, great light may be thrown on the hillory of Yemen before the time of Muhammed, fince it is generally known, that four Ethiop kings fucceffively reigned in that country, having been invited over by the natives to oppofe the tyrant Dhu Nawas, and that they were in their turn expelled by the arms of the Hymyarick princes with the aid of Anufhirvan, king of Perfia, who did not fail, as it ufually happens, to keep in fubjection the people whom he had confented to relieve. If the annals of this period can be restored, it must be through the hiftories of Abyffinia, which will alfo correct the

many errors of the best Afiatick writers on the Nile, and the country which it fertilifes.

On the Courfe of the Nile. THE Nile, which the Abyffinian know by the names of Abey and Alawy, or the Giant, gushes from feveral fprings at a place called Sucut, lying on the highest part of Dengala near Gojjam, to the weft of Bajemdir, and the lake of Dara or Wed; into which it runs with fo ftrong and rapid a current, that it mixes not with the other waters, but rides or fwims, as it were, above them.

All the rains that fall in Abyffinia, and defcend in torrents from the hills; all ftreams and rivers, small and great except the Hanazo, which washes the plains of Hengo, and the Hawish which flows by Dewar and Fetgar, are collected by this king of waters, and, like vaffals, attend his march: thus enforced he rushes, like a hero exulting in his ftrength, and haftens to fertilife the land of Egypt, on which no rain falls. We must except allo thofe Ethiopian rivers, which rife in countries bordering on the ocean, as the kingdoms of Cambat, Gurajy, Wafy, Cafy, Wej, and Zinjiro, whofe waters are difembogued into the fea.

When the Alawy has paffed the lake it proceeds between Gojjam and Bajemdir, and, leaving them to the weft and eaft, pursues a direct courfe towards Amhara, the fkirts of which it bathes, and then turns again to the weft, touching the borders of Walaka; whence it rolls along Mugar and Shawal, and, paffing Bazawa and Gonga, defcends into the lowlands of Shankila, the country of the Blacks : thus it forms a fort of spiral round the province of Gojjam, which it keeps for the moft part on its right.

Here it bends a little to the east, from which quarter, before it reaches the districts of Sennar, it receives two large rivers, one called Tacazzy,

internal death, internal corruption. The woman faw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleafant to the eyes, and a tree to be defired to make one wife, and fhe took of the fruit thereof.' (Gen. iii. 6.) 'The female thinks not profoundly; profound thought is the power of the man.'

• Women feel more. Senfibility is of woman.'

the power

They often rule more effectually, more fovereignly, than man. They rule with tender looks, tears, and fighs; but not with paflion and threats; for if, or when, they fo rule, they are no longer women, but abortions.'

They are capable of the sweetest fenfibility, the most profound emotion, the utmost humility, and the excess of enthusiasm.'

In their countenance are the figns of fanctity and inviolability, which every feeling man honours, and the effects of which are often miraculous.'

Therefore, by the irritability of their nerves, their incapacity for deep enquiry and firm decifion, they may eafily from their extreme fenfibility, become the most irreclaimable, the most rapturous enthusiasts.'

Their love, strong and rooted as it is, is very changeable; their hatred almost incurable, and only to be effaced by continued and artful flattery*. Men are most profound; wo

men are more fublime.

Men moft embrace the whole; women remark individually, and take more delight in selecting the minutiæ which form the whole. Man hears

the bursting thunder, views the de ftructive bolt with ferene aspect, and ftands erect amidst the fearful majesty of the streaming clouds.

• Woman trembles at the lightning, and the voice of diftant thunder; and fhrinks into herself, or finks into the arms of man.

• Man receives a ray of light fingle, woman delights to view it through a prifm in all its dazzling colours. She contemplates the rainbow as the promife of peace; he extends his inquiring eye over the whole horizon.

'Woman laughs, man fmiles † : woman weeps, man remains filent. Wo man is in anguish when man weeps, and in defpair when man is in anguish; yet has the often more faith than man.

Man without religion is a difeafed creature, who would perfuade himself he is well and needs not a phyfician; but woman, without religion, is raging and monftrous.

A woman with a beard is not fo disgusting as a woman who acts the freethinker; her fex is formed to piety and religion; to them Chrift first appeared; but he was obliged to prevent them from too ardently, and too haftily embracing him.-Touch me not. They are prompt to receive and feize novelty, and become its enthufiafts.

The whole world is forgotten, in the emotion caufed by the prefence and proximity of him they love.

They fink into the most incurable melancholy, as they also rife to the most enraptured heights.

Male fenfationis more imagination, female more heart.

• When

• When communicative, they are more communicative than man; when fecret, more fecret.

'In general they are more patient, long fuffering, credulous, benevolent, and modeft.

• Woman is not a foundation on which to build. She is the gold, filver, precious ftones, wood, hay, ftubble (1 Cor. iii. 12.); the materials for building on the male foundation. She is the leaven, or, more expreffively, the oil, to the vinegar of man: the fecond part of the book of man.

'Man fingly, is but half man: at least but half human.-A king without a kingdom. Woman, who feels properly what he is, whether still or in motion, refts upon the man; nor is man what he may and ought to be, but in conjunction with woman; therefore, "It is not good that man fhould be alone, but that he should leave father and mother, and cleave to his wife, and they two fhall be one flesh.' A Word on the Phyfiognomonical relation of the Sexes.

'W E continued through the

largest of these vallies; which, though very narrow, is exceedingly populous. You have been at Matlock in Derbyshire, and I remember your admiration of its beautiful and romantic fituation: the scenery of this valley is of the fame caft, but infinitely more picturefque, more wild, more varied, and more fublime. The Linth is much broader and more 'rapid than the Derwent; and the hillocks of the Peake are mere molehills to the alps of Glarus. Thefe ftupendous chains of rocks are abfolutely perpendicular, approach one aVOL. XI. No. 61.

*

C

nother fo near, and are fo high, that the fun may be faid to fet, even in fummer, at four in the afternoon. On each fide are numbers of thofe waterfalls we fo much admired during our paffage over the lake of Wallenstadt one in particular, near the village of Ruti, that foamed down the steep fides of a mountain, from the midst of a hanging grove of trees. I was fo сарtivated with thefe enchanting scenes, that I could not help ftopping every moment to admire them and our guide, not conceiving it poffible that these delays could be owing to any other caufe than the la

zinefs

zinefs of his horfe, never failed to ftrike the poor beaft; and continually awakened me out of my rapturous contemplations; and it was fome time before I could make him comprehend that I ftopped by choice, and wifhed to continue my own pace. After having rode about ten miles, we quitted our horfes and walked. Near Leugelbach, a confiderable rivulet is formed by two streams bursting from the ground at the foot of a mountain, which after a few paces unite, and fall into the Linth: befide these two princi; al branches, feveral fmaller fprings, and numberlefs little fountains, guth from the rock. The clearness of the ftreams; their rapidity and murmuring found; the trees that hang over point from whence they iffue; the rude rocks above; the rich meadows and fcattered hamlets- all together form an affemblage of the moft lively and pleafing objects that ever entered into a beautiful landscape.

the

6

I am informed by David Pennant, Efq; that falmons force their way annually from the fea as high as this river, to depofit their spawn. Ther progress is up the Rhine, and out of that noble river up the Aar, and through the lake of Zuric into the Linth; a courfe of many hundred miles. They are taken in thefe dif tant parts in September and October, and about the fize of feventeen or twenty pounds weight.

We crofled the Linth feveral times, which rufhes with all the violence of a torrent; and came at length to an amphitheatre of mountains, where the valley ended: on our right hand a fall more confiderable than any we had yet feen, tumbling down perpendicu larly over a bare rock in a large body of water; the Alps on each fide crowned with inacceffible forefts, and covered with everlafting fnow: before us a pyramidical mountain, bare and craggy; and the glaciers of Glarus clofing the view. Here the valley, and the habitable part of the canton

terminate. We then quitted the plain, and afcending through a wild forest of beech and pines, continued more than an hour mounting a very steep and rugged path, till we came to the Panten- Bruck, a bridge over the cataract that forms the Linth, which is here called the Sand-bach: it roars from the glacier down the steep mountain in one unbroken fall, and, a little way before its arrival under the bridge, works itfelf a fubterraneous paffage through the rock, where it is loft only to appear again with increafed violence and precipitation. The bridge is a fingle arch of stone, of about feventy feet in length, thrown over a precipice of above three hundred feet in depth.

It ferves as a communication with the Upper Alps, and is the paffage for the cattle which are fed there during the fummer months; on the other fide fome goats came jumping around us, and feemed to welcome us to their dreary habitations. These mountains are covered with a great variety of rare plants, which made me regret that I had not puriued my tanical ftudies.

bo

As I leaned upon

the parapet of the bridge, and looked down into the chafm beneath, my head almoft turned giddy with the height. The rock, down which the Sandbach drives, is compofed of flate. After we had continued fome time admiring the fublime horror of the fcenedefcended into the valley, ry, we and made a hearty meal upon fome excellent bread, honey, butter, and milk, which a neighbouring cottage fupplied. As the canton almoft entirely confifts of rich meadows,` the milk and butter are delicious; and the honey of thefe mountainous countries. is moft exquifite. Nothing delights me fo much as the infide of a Swifs cottage: all thofe I have hitherto vifited, convey the livelieft image of cleanlinefs, eafe, and fimplicity; and cannot but ftrongly imprefs upon the obferver a moft pleafing conviction of the peafant's happiness.