“Ptolemy Philadelphia waged war on Ethiopia with a view to ascend the Nile. He took the town of Axum, as may be seen by the inscriptions that Cosmos Indoplustes has preserved, which he copied during the reign of Emperor Justin I.” “Lucan makes Cæsar say in his ‘Pharsalia,’ that he would readily abandon the design of warring against his country could he be happy enough to see the primal fountains of the Nile: “‘Nihil est quod noscere malim, Quam fluvii causas per sæcula tanta latentes, Ignotumque caput: spes sit mihi certa videndi Niliacos fontes; bellum civile relinquam.’” “Nero was animated by the same thirst for glory, for he despatched armies to make this discovery, but the report submitted to him removed all hope of success.” “The ancients therefore, searching in vain for the sources of the Nile, attempted to conceal their ignorance by mysteries, and they related them in fables. Even the interpreters of Holy Scripture were not exempt from this defect, as they knew no other lands on Ethiopia than that of Africa; they thought that Gihon, mentioned in Genesis, was the Nile, not being able to go against the Scriptures, where it is said that the Gihon has its spring in the terrestrial paradise, and it waters the land of Chus; it passes through under the seas and under the earth to reappear in Ethiopia. How many clever men have endeavoured to clear up these fables? and how many different systems were got up? The Bishop of Avranches supports, in his ‘Treatise of the Terrestrial Paradise,’ that the Gihon is an easternly branch of the Euphrates, which flows from the country of Eden and passes along the country of Chus, now the Cheezeslam. He adds that Homer makes out that it descends from Jupiter, and calls it [Greek: Dêtetê Δητετἡ]; this is what has caused Plautus to say, in speaking of a river, which he does not name, that it has its source in heaven and under the throne of Jupiter. The Egyptians, Ethiopians, Abyssinians, Gymnosophists, after making out this river to be a divinity, have thought themselves obliged to maintain the old errors--even the most absurd ones. Therefore we should not be astonished, after the poets having attributed a heavenly origin to the Nile, if the Egyptians, who owe the fertility of their country to it, have built temples, have erected altars, have established festivals in its honour, finally, if they have adored it under the name of Osiris.”