An enquiry into M. Antoine d'Abbadie's journey to Kaffa, in the years 1843 and 1844, to discover the source of the Nile / [Charles T. Beke].

  • Charles Tilstone Beke
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An enquiry into M. Antoine d'Abbadie's journey to Kaffa, in the years 1843 and 1844, to discover the source of the Nile / [Charles T. Beke]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    due to M. d’Abbadie to state that he admits that these figures may undergo a trifling change when [he] shall have discussed all his azimuthal angles.”^ Under these circumstances, I may therefore be permitted to believe that Sakka is nearer to the source of the Gibbe than the observation for latitude at the former place would make it ; and I confidently anticipate that the correction for aberration _and nutation/’ and the discussion of his azinmthal angles/’ which the learned traveller iritends making, will eventually result in a sensible amount of error, so as to permit the position of his little hut in Sakka” to be shifted so far southwards, as to bring it more distinctly within sight of the source of the Gibbe in the forest ofBabia than it assuredly is at a distance of twenty-six miles, even in the clear atmosphere of the highlands of Eastern Africa.^ Fourth Objection.— The care with which M. d!Ahhadies first journey^ to Enarea and Kafifa, with its results, has since been hey t_out of sight; while the second journey to Enarea alone, has been brought prominently forward and made to super¬ sede the other. In spite of my ill-health, resulting from a very fatiguing journey performed under circumstances altogether exceptional even in Ethiopia, I hasten to inform you that, on the 19th of January, 1846, my brother and I succeeded in planting the tri¬ coloured flag at the principal source of the White Nile —such is the song of triumph in which the traveller announced to the Academy of Sciences of Paris the glorious event which had at length crowned the scientific labours of himself and his brother during a residence indefinitely prolonged in Eastern Africa, and their many wearisome and dangerous expeditions under¬ taken, as alleged, with the sole object of discovering the source of the Nile.^ Yet, if the solution of this great geographical pro¬ blem was from the outset the constant and exclusive object of all their thoughts,and all their labours, or even if their desire was merely to “plant the French flag at this source which [they] had been nine years in search of,”^—it certainly is not very intel¬ ligible why M. d’Abbadie should, during the first five years of his sojourn in Eastern Africa, have restricted his explora- * Athen. No. 1040, p. 1058. des Sciences de Paris, vol. xxv. ^ According to tlie last accounts, p. 485. the distance is only 20' or about 24^ ^ See page 1, ante. statute miles! See page 35, post. ^ Comytes Bendus, vol. xxix. ^ Comptes Bendus de V Academic p. 6571
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