[Endnote 152: (p. 188). _Ellice and Cenosura._--Here we have another manuscript note.--[These are the two poles, to wit, Arctic and Antarctic. And the interpreter of Ovid saith that each one of these two signs are called _Arcom_, and that _Arcom_ is a Greek word, and signifieth what in Latin is meant by _Ursi_, and in the Portuguese language by _Ursas_; and that, besides, by each of these signs we call the North.]] [Endnote 153: (p. 189). _So directly passeth the sun, etc._--[See Strabo, Bk. XVII, who refers to the wells without shade during the summer solstice.]--S.] [Endnote 153a: (pp. 188-9). _Bishop Achoreus._--[Azurara refers here to Achoreus, the Egyptian high priest of whom Lucan speaks in the _Pharsalia_, Canto x. The passage to which Azurara refers begins with the following verse:--Vana fides veterum, Nilo, quod crescat in arva. Comparing this chapter of Azurara with the episode of Canto x of the _Pharsalia_, we see clearly that it was from Lucan he derived the whole of his description of the Nile.]--S.] [Endnote 154: (p. 191). _The marvels of the Nile._--[So great was the influence of the systematic geography of the ancients upon the imagination of the Portuguese of the fifteenth century, that, on arriving at the Senegal, and seeing that the water was sweet very near to the mouth, and very clear, in the same manner as the Nile (_Nulli fluminum dulcior gustus est_, said Seneca), and observing the same phenomena, they did not doubt for a moment that they had discovered the Nile of the Negroes. In these two chapters we see something of the vast erudition of Azurara, and at the same time something of the historical and cosmographical knowledge of our first discoverers. Moreover, we must call the attention of the reader to a very important detail, namely, that while Azurara shows himself imbued with the reading of the ancient authors on these matters, in the same way as our mariners, the latter, if we study the spirit of their words, show that they had some knowledge of the system of the Arab geographers in this respect. These latter applied the same terms (as our first Portuguese explorers) to the two rivers, distinguishing the Nile of Egypt and the Nile of the Negroes. This opinion of the Niger being an arm of the Nile was even maintained in our own day by Jackson, in his work entitled, _An Account of the Empire of Marocco and the District of Suze_. In vol. xiv of the _Annales des Voyages_, by Malte-Brun, 1811, and in vol. xvii of the same work, p. 350, we meet with a curious analysis of this work of Jackson's on the identity of the two rivers.]--S.