DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5309#0123
It is in a great measure similar to the group of the Vatican ; and as respects the
exquisite symmetry and precision of the workmanship, may be considered as a perfect
copy.
Perhaps the cubits may be the {estuaries or mouths of the Nile, the number of
which has been differently stated by Historians and Geographers ; Herodotus men-
tions seven, Ptolemy reckons nine, and Strabo fifteen; while more recent authors, some
of whom boast of ocular knowledge, affirm there are but three or four. It seems to us
that the inundation, and the sixteen cubits, might be expressed in a most characteris-
tical and simple manner, by a little genius pointing to the measure in a Nifometer, or
Niloscope. We recommend this idea to the artists, and take an opportunity of observ-
ing, that the measure of the cubit among the old Egyptians differed from the present,
being of thirty-two inches instead of twenty-four.
There is another particular object for the artists' consideration, which we think well
deserves their attention. The source of the Nile is no longer a problem. It is well
known that the discovery fell to the lot of Father Peter Paez, a Portuguese Jesuit in
the last century. From his own account, translated from the Portuguese by Kircher,
in the first part of his Mundus Subterraneus, it appears that in the year 1618, being
with the Emperor of Abyssinia in the western part of the kingdom of Goyam, on the
28th of April, he, along with his Imperial Majesty, ascended to the head of a spacious
valley, in a place called Salala, and there found two fountains at a small distance from
each other, wherein he recognized the source of the Nile ; a discovery that has been
confirmed by subsequent relations, and proved consonant to the most accurate geogra-
phical information. We know that a modern voluminous Traveller has charged the
Jesuit Kircher with forgery respecting the manuscript of Father Paez, and made no
scruple to set him down for an impostor ; but if we are to measure the justice of the
imputation by the weight of the arguments on which it is grounded, we think that at
any rate Kircher is intitled to plead the law of retaliation. It will be sufficient for
us to observe, that a simple mistake in a letter in the spelling of the word Sabala
is one of the most cogent proofs urged by the critic. Nothing puzzled the curiosity
of the ancients more than the secret of the head of the Nile. We are told that four
of the most renowned Monarchs in the Universe, Cyrus, Cambyses, Alexander, and
Julius Cassar, made many fruitless inquiries respecting it. The Macedonian Hero hav-
ing met with crocodiles in the river Ganges, was led to think that the question was
resolved; but soon perceived his mistake. Lucan, to shew how solicitous Caesar was
to discover the arcanum of the Nile, makes him declare, that if he had but entertained
a reasonable hope of seeing the source of that river, he would not have pursued the
civil war : —
Nihil est quod noscere malim,
Quam fluvii causas per scecula tanta latentes,
Ignotumque caput. Spes sit miài certa videndi
Niliacos fontes, helium civile relinquam.—1. 10. v. 150.
74
exquisite symmetry and precision of the workmanship, may be considered as a perfect
copy.
Perhaps the cubits may be the {estuaries or mouths of the Nile, the number of
which has been differently stated by Historians and Geographers ; Herodotus men-
tions seven, Ptolemy reckons nine, and Strabo fifteen; while more recent authors, some
of whom boast of ocular knowledge, affirm there are but three or four. It seems to us
that the inundation, and the sixteen cubits, might be expressed in a most characteris-
tical and simple manner, by a little genius pointing to the measure in a Nifometer, or
Niloscope. We recommend this idea to the artists, and take an opportunity of observ-
ing, that the measure of the cubit among the old Egyptians differed from the present,
being of thirty-two inches instead of twenty-four.
There is another particular object for the artists' consideration, which we think well
deserves their attention. The source of the Nile is no longer a problem. It is well
known that the discovery fell to the lot of Father Peter Paez, a Portuguese Jesuit in
the last century. From his own account, translated from the Portuguese by Kircher,
in the first part of his Mundus Subterraneus, it appears that in the year 1618, being
with the Emperor of Abyssinia in the western part of the kingdom of Goyam, on the
28th of April, he, along with his Imperial Majesty, ascended to the head of a spacious
valley, in a place called Salala, and there found two fountains at a small distance from
each other, wherein he recognized the source of the Nile ; a discovery that has been
confirmed by subsequent relations, and proved consonant to the most accurate geogra-
phical information. We know that a modern voluminous Traveller has charged the
Jesuit Kircher with forgery respecting the manuscript of Father Paez, and made no
scruple to set him down for an impostor ; but if we are to measure the justice of the
imputation by the weight of the arguments on which it is grounded, we think that at
any rate Kircher is intitled to plead the law of retaliation. It will be sufficient for
us to observe, that a simple mistake in a letter in the spelling of the word Sabala
is one of the most cogent proofs urged by the critic. Nothing puzzled the curiosity
of the ancients more than the secret of the head of the Nile. We are told that four
of the most renowned Monarchs in the Universe, Cyrus, Cambyses, Alexander, and
Julius Cassar, made many fruitless inquiries respecting it. The Macedonian Hero hav-
ing met with crocodiles in the river Ganges, was led to think that the question was
resolved; but soon perceived his mistake. Lucan, to shew how solicitous Caesar was
to discover the arcanum of the Nile, makes him declare, that if he had but entertained
a reasonable hope of seeing the source of that river, he would not have pursued the
civil war : —
Nihil est quod noscere malim,
Quam fluvii causas per scecula tanta latentes,
Ignotumque caput. Spes sit miài certa videndi
Niliacos fontes, helium civile relinquam.—1. 10. v. 150.
74