The Crocodile Is Very Ugly, Having No Proportion Between His Length
And Thickness; He Hath Short Feet, A Wide Mouth, With Two Rows Of
Sharp Teeth, Standing Wide From Each Other, A Brown Skin So
Fortified With Scales, Even To His Nose, That A Musket-Ball Cannot
Penetrate It.
His sight is extremely quick, and at a great
distance.
In the water he is daring and fierce, and will seize on
any that are so unfortunate as to be found by him bathing, who, if
they escape with life, are almost sure to leave some limb in his
mouth. Neither I, nor any with whom I have conversed about the
crocodile, have ever seen him weep, and therefore I take the liberty
of ranking all that hath been told us of his tears amongst the
fables which are only proper to amuse children.
The hippopotamus, or river-horse, grazes upon the land and browses
on the shrubs, yet is no less dangerous than the crocodile. He is
the size of an ox, of a brown colour without any hair, his tail is
short, his neck long, and his head of an enormous bigness; his eyes
are small, his mouth wide, with teeth half a foot long; he hath two
tusks like those of a wild boar, but larger; his legs are short, and
his feet part into four toes. It is easy to observe from this
description that he hath no resemblance of a horse, and indeed
nothing could give occasion to the name but some likeness in his
ears, and his neighing and snorting like a horse when he is provoked
or raises his head out of water. 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. 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. Others pretend a subterraneous communication
between the ocean and the Nile, and that the sea being violently
agitated swells the river. Many have imagined themselves blessed
with the discovery when they have told us that this mighty flood
proceeds from the melting of snow on the mountains of Aethiopia,
without reflecting that this opinion is contrary to the received
notion of all the ancients, who believed that the heat was so
excessive between the tropics that no inhabitant could live there.
So much snow and so great heat are never met with in the same
region; and indeed I never saw snow in Abyssinia, except on Mount
Semen in the kingdom of Tigre, very remote from the Nile, and on
Namera, which is indeed not far distant, but where there never falls
snow sufficient to wet the foot of the mountain when it is melted.
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