My views to the South of Egypt having been frustrated during the last year, I was reduced to the alternative of abandoning any further projects in that quarter, or of waiting for a more seasonable opportunity. As it was reported that such an one would soon offer, I did not hesitate to prefer the latter, though strongly dissuaded from it, as generally happens to those whose designs are any way analogous to mine. The Europeans in this quarter, as well as the natives, being immersed in commerce from their early years, are unable to conceive the advantages promised by voyages of discovery, to which no immediate profit is attached; and accordingly as they know the hazard great, and imagine the atchievement frivolous and useless, even from the best motives they are rather inclined to discourage, than to animate, any one who undertakes them. From conviction sufficiently clear, arising both from reading and the sentiments of those who were best informed on the subject, that the river whose source Mr. Bruce describes is not the true Nile, I thought it an object of still greater importance, that the source of the more Western river should be investigated. But what might have been a matter of choice, was with me only the result of necessity. The idea of reaching the sources of this river, (the Bahr-el-abiad,) laid down in the maps apparently at about two hundred leagues farther South than Sennaar, seemed to me so hopeless, that this object alone would hardly have induced me to undertake such a voyage. I should rather have been inclined to attempt Abyssinia, and endeavour to certify, as well as circumstances might permit, how far authentic former narratives had been, and what might offer that was new to European observation. For this purpose the obvious and most easy route was by the Red Sea to Masouah. But all accounts concurred in magnifying the difficulty, and almost impossibility, of an European passing there undiscovered; and, being discovered, of his penetrating any farther. The road from Kahira to Sennaar was the one I should have preferred; but the desolation and anarchy then prevailing in Nubia, which had prevented me from passing the former year, would not probably have allowed me better success in this. Besides, the city of Sennaar was then occupied by the slaves of the last _Mecque_, or king, who had deposed and put to death their master, and still continued to usurp the government. By taking the route of Dar-Fûr, I was taught to believe that I might hope for the advantages of a regular government; and with proper management might expect every favour from the monarch. The local inconvenience of being so much farther removed from Abyssinia was indeed obvious; but on the other hand the choice of more than one route was, it seemed likely, thereby offered; which, in a place where progress is so uncertain, and contingencies so numerous, would be a matter of no inconsiderable importance.