On the 3d of November he came in sight of a triple ridge of mountains, disposed one range behind another, nearly in form of three concentric circles, which he supposed to be the Mountains of the Moon, the “Montes Lunæ” of the ancients, near which the Nile was said to rise; and on the 4th, about three quarters after one o’clock, “we arrived,” says Bruce, “on the top of a mountain, whence we had a distinct view of all the remaining territory of Saccala, the mountain Geesh, and church of St. Michael Geesh, about a mile and a half distant from St. Michael Saccala, where we then were. We saw immediately below us the Nile itself strangely diminished in size, and now only a brook that had scarce water enough to turn a mill. I could not satiate myself with the sight, revolving in my mind all those classical prophecies that had given the Nile up to perpetual obscurity and concealment. The lines of the poet came immediately into my mind, and I enjoyed here, for the first time, the triumph which already, by the protection of Providence and my own intrepidity, I had gained over all that were powerful and all that were learned since the remotest antiquity. Arcanum natura caput non prodidit ulli, Nec licuit populis parvum te, Nile, videre; Amovitque sinus, et gentes maluit ortus Mirari, quam nôsse tuos.’”[12] Footnote 12: Lucan, Phars. x. 295. His guide, who, having formerly committed a murder in the village of Geesh, was afraid to enter it, made a number of lame excuses for not accompanying him to the fountains, and at length confessed the truth. His apprehensions, however, were not proof against his vanity and avarice. He had long been desirous of possessing a rich sash which Bruce wore about his waist, and was bribed by this article of finery to approach somewhat nearer to the scene of his past villany. After leading the traveller round to the south of the church, beyond the grove of trees which surrounded it, “This,” says he, “is the hill which, when you were on the other side of it, was between you and the fountains of the Nile. There is no other. Look at that hillock of green sod in the middle of that watery spot; it is in that the two fountains of the Nile are to be found. Geesh is on the face of the rock where yon green trees are. If you go the length of the fountain, pull off your shoes as you did the other day; for these people are pagans, and believe in nothing that you believe, but only in this river, to which they pray every day, as if it were God; but this, perhaps, you may do likewise.”