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or unceafing fun-fhine; nor are the nations, here defcribed, either void of all "sense of humanity, or confummate in all

private and focial virtues; here are no "Hottentots without religion, polity, or ar"ticulate language; no Chinese perfectly polite, and completely fkilled in all fci

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ences; he will discover, what will always "be discovered by a diligent and impartial enquirer, that wherever human nature is "to be found, there is a mixture of vice and

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virtue, a conteft of paffion and reason; "and that the Creator doth not appear par"tial in his diftributions, but has balanced, "in most countries, their particular inconveniences by particular favours." -We have here an early fpecimen of Johnson's manner the vein of thinking and the frame of the fentences are manifeftly his: we see the infant Hercules. The tranflation of Lobo's Narrative has been reprinted lately in a feparate volume, with fome other tracts of Dr. Johnfon's, and therefore forms no part of this edition; but a compendious account of fo interefting a work as Father Lobo's dif covery of the head of the Nile will not, it is imagined, be unacceptable to the reader.

Father

Father Lobo, the Portuguese Miffionary, embarked, in 1622, in the fame fleet with the Count Vidigueira, who was appointed, by the king of Portugal, Viceroy of the Indies. They arrived at Goa ; and, in January 1624, Father Lobo fet out on the miffion to Abyffinia. Two of the Jefuits, fent on the fame commiffion, were murdered in their attempt to penetrate into that empire, Lobo had better fuccefs: he furmounted all difficulties, and made his way into the heart of the country. Then follows a description of Abys finia, formerly the largest empire of which we have an account in hiftory. It extended from the Red Sea to the kingdom of Congo, and from Egypt to the Indian Sea, containing no less than forty provinces At the time of Lobo's miffion, it was not much larger than Spain, confifting then but of five kingdoms, of which part was entirely subject to the Emperor, and part paid him a tribute, as an acknowledgement. The provinces were inhabited by Moors, Pagans, Jews, and Chriftians. The laft was in Lobo's time the established and reigning religion. The diverfity of people and religion is the reafon

why

The

why the kingdom was under different forms of government, with laws and cuftoms extremely various. Some of the people neither fowed their land, nor improved them by any kind of culture, living upon milk and flesh, and, like the Arabs, encamping without any fettled habitation. In fome places they practifed no rites of worship, though they believed that, in the regions above, there dwells a Being that governs a world. This Deity they call in their language Oul. Christianity, profeffed by the people in fome parts, is fo corrupted with fuperftitions, errors, and herefies, and fo mingled with ceremonies borrowed from the Jews, that little, befides the name of Chriftianity, is to be found among them. The Abyffins cannot properly be faid to have either cities or houses; they live in tents or cottages made of ftraw or clay, very rarely building with ftone. Their villages or towns confift of these huts; yet even of fuch villages they have but few, because the grandees, the viceroys, and the emperor himself, are always in camp, that they may be prepared, upon the most fudden alarm, to meet every emergence in a country which is engaged every year VOL. I. C either

either in foreign wars or inteftine commotions. Ethiopia produces very near the fame kinds of provifion as Portugal, though, by the extreme laziness of the inhabitants, in a much less quantity. What the ancients imagined of the torrid zone being a part of the world uninhabitable, is fo far from being true, that the climate is very temperate. The blacks have better features than in other countries, and are not without wit and ingenuity. Their apprehenfion is quick, and their judgement found. There are in this climate two harvests in the year: one in winter, which lafts through the months of July, Auguft, and September; the other in the fpring. They have, in the greatest plenty raifins, peaches, pomegranates, fugar-canes, and fome figs. Moft of thefe are ripe about Lent, which the Abyffins keep with great ftrictnefs. The animals of the country are the lion, the elephant, the rhinoceros, the unicorn, horfes, mules, oxen, and cows without number. They have a, very particular cuftom, which obliges every man, that has a thousand cows, to fave every year one day's milk of all his herd, and make a bath with it for his relations. This they do so many

days

days in each year, as they have thousands of cattle; fo that, to express how rich a man is, they tell you, he bathes fo many times.

"Of the river Nile, which has furnished fo much controverfy, we have a full and clear defcription. It is called by the natives, ABAVI, the Father of Water. It rifes in SACALA, a province of the kingdom of GoiAMA, the moft fertile and agreeable part of the Abyffinian dominions. On the Eastern fide of the country, on the declivity of a mountain, whose descent is fo easy, that it feems a beautiful plain, is that fource of the Nile, which has been fought after at fo much expence and labour. This fpring, or rather these two springs, are two holes, each about two feet diameter, a ftone's caft diftant from each other. One of them is about five feet and a half in depth. Lobo was not able to fink his plummet lower, perhaps, because it was ftopped by roots, the whole place being full of trees. A line of ten feet did not reach the bottom of the other. Thefe fprings are fuppofed by the Abyffins to be the vents of a great subterraneous lake. At a fmall distance to the South,

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