THE FOUNTAINS OF THE NILE

“Timaeus the mathematician has alleged a reason of an occult nature: he says that the source
of the river (Nile) is known by the name Phiala, and that the stream buries itself in channels
underground, where it sends forth vapours generated by the heat among the steaming rocks
amid which it conceals itself; but that, during the days of the inundation, in consequence of the
sun approaching nearer to the earth, the waters are drawn forth by the influence of his heat,
and on being thus exposed to the air, overflow; after which, in order that it may not be utterly
dried up, the stream hides itself once more.”1

There is a consistent reference from many ancient writers that the Nile originates deep in the
interior of southern Africa and that there was an underground network of reservoirs, as stated
by Pliny, that connected the various river systems to each other. The source of the Nile was
therefore imagined in the southern extremity of the known African continent. In this location
were the legendary Mountains of the Moon.

“... the Barbarian Bay, which is near the shallow sea is called Breve, from the Rhaptum
promontory even to the Prasum promontory and the unknown land. Around this bay the
Aethiopian Anthropophagi dwell, and from these toward the west are the Mountains of the
Moon, from which the lakes of the Nile receive snow water…”2

The current pervasive theory is that the Mountains of the Moon are the Ruwenzori mountains
in Rwanda mainly because they are situated close to the scientific source of the Nile and
because snow melt flows from the mountains into the lakes below. However this equatorial
location is contradicted by Ptolemy himself who locates the mountains and the source of the
Nile substantially below the equator at 12 degrees south.

“Around this bay the Anthropophagi Aethiopians dwell, and from these toward the west are the
Mountains of the Moon from which the lakes of the Nile receive snow water; they are located at
the extreme limits of the Mountains of the Moon 57 south 12 30 and 67 south 12 30.” 3

It is impossible to explain such a major discrepancy especially as it was Ptolemy, together with
Marinus of Tyre, that was the first to write of the Mountains of the Moon in the mid second
century CE. A drastic error such as this of confusing the equatorial region with the deepest
southern Africa undermines the Ruwenzori theory.

There was an ancient belief in a universal river that encircled the world. Pausanias refers to an
archaic myth that the Euphrates was connected to a river system that originated in east Africa
(termed Ethiopia in its ancient sense as the entirety of continental eastern Africa). He states that
the river rises “beyond Aethiopia” meaning that it has a source deep in south east Africa. “...
there is a story that the Nile itself is the Euphrates, which disappears into a marsh, rises again
beyond Aethiopia and becomes the Nile.”4

In the biblical Garden of Eden the universal river that watered the garden was divided into four
parts as it spread around the world. The four rivers are named in Genesis as the Pison, Gihon,
Tigris and Euphrates. “And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was
parted, and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison: that is which compasseth
the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; And the gold of that land is good: there is
bdellium and the onyx stone. And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that
compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it
which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.”5
There is therefore a consistent reference from many ancient writers that the Nile originates
deep in the interior of southern Africa. The Bible speaks of a river that “compasseth the whole
land of Ethiopia” where ‘Ethiopia’ was understood in antiquity as designating the entire
continent of Africa.

In the tenth century, with cartography far more accurate, al-Mas’udi states that the Nile extends
across the continent deep into southern Africa (Sofala) where it flows into the sea. A branch of
the Nile separates from the upper Nile and extends into Sofala in southern Africa from where it
flows into the sea in the Mozambique Channel. The location of the delta is established by the
reference to the Sofala region, and by the delta being opposite Qanbalu which can be
definitively proved to be Madagascar or the Comoros.6

Portuguese writers, following on from these early Arab accounts, stated that the Zambezi had
its source in a lake deep in the African interior. From this lake other rivers also arose with
diverse paths to the sea. Joao dos Santos stated in 1609 that the Zambezi had its source in a
lake in the midst of the continent.

“The River Cuama (the Zambezi) is by them called Zambeze; the head whereof is so farre within
the Land that none of them know it, but by tradition of their Progenitors say it comes from a
Lake in the midst of the continent which yields also great Rivers, divers ways visiting the Sea.” 7

Contemporary with this statement the Mercator map of Africa of 1609 has a lake which is called
‘Sac. Haf lac’ which is simultaneously the source of both the Nile and Zambezi. ‘Lacus’ is Latin
for lake and ‘sac’ is potentially an abbreviation of the Latin for sacred. The lake is also within the
vicinity of the Lunes montes, the Mountains of the Moon, which are positioned far south of the
equator. Other cartographers used variations of the lake’s name such as Sachaf Lacus. Not all
cartographers connected the lake to the Nile and some maps show it connected to both the
Spirito Santo (Limpopo) and the Zambezi amongst other rivers. In 1525 the lake was connected
to the Nile by Laurent Fries and later maps followed suit.
The 1507 Waldseemuller map was one of the first to include the lake. Ultimately the origin of
the lake can be traced back to the ‘Egyptus Novelo’ by Pietro del Massaio. The genesis of this
lake dates to the Council of Florence in 1441 which was attended by Ethiopian delegates. These
are believed to have informed European cartographers of the African interior in an era in which
Vasco da Gama was yet to circumnavigate Africa. The Ethiopian delegates were thus drawing on
knowledge that came from Ethiopian and Abyssinian sources potentially stretching back into
antiquity.

The common feature of the lake among many of these maps is that the Zambezi flows out of it.
The lake cannot be identified with any known lake as it lies too far south to be matched to the
central African lakes and too far to the west to be Lake Nyasa in Malawi. In this sense it appears
to be entirely fictional and therefore to be a mystery. The mystery is compounded by the lake’s
critical importance in being both a source for the Nile and the Zambezi.

One of the great unsupported myths is that the Victoria Falls were only discovered in the
nineteenth century by David Livingstone. This expedition that supposedly ‘discovered’ the falls
and named them after Victoria had more of the character of a Swahili safari. The distinguishing
factor of David Livingstone’s expedition was that it was documented in writing and reported by
the British press.

Certainly traders that in previous centuries were sailing up the Zambezi as far as the Lupata
Gorge must have heard rumours of such a phenomenon. The Victoria Falls is defined by its huge
volume of water in otherwise fairly waterless terrain. Consequently the Zambezi above the falls
and the Chobe in the same vicinity act as a magnet for wildlife and especially for elephants.
Ivory was the main export, apart from gold, of the region as was documented by Arab writers
from at least the tenth century onwards.
These early African maps, dating from before the official ‘discovery’ of the falls, locate the
mystery lake in the vicinity of the falls corresponding to the wide expanse of the Zambezi
before it plummets into the canyons below. The fascination with the source of the Nile appears
to have been driven by an ancient knowledge of the falls that was incorporated into oral myth.
It is only the presence of the falls that can explain the conflation of the Nile with the Zambezi.

As stated by Pausanias this combined river represented a universal river traversing most of the
continent of Africa and even joining with the Euphrates. Pausanias refers to the Euphrates
entering a marsh and presumably then flowing underground before reappearing “beyond
Aethiopia” potentially indicating southern Africa. “... there is a story that the Nile itself is the
Euphrates, which disappears into a marsh, rises again beyond Aethiopia and becomes the Nile.” 8

In this context the universal river splits at the mystery lake with one branch throwing itself into
the sea at the Mozambique coast and the other branch traversing the rest of the continent to
become the Nile. In Athanasius Kircher’s map, dated 1665, of southern Africa the same
mysterious lake is depicted with the Zambezi (Cuama) coming from it and heading south, and
the Nile exiting the lake and heading north into the continental interior. Next to the Nile as it
comes from the lake is written ‘Origine de Nilo’ (origin of the Nile).

Kircher’s map has an alchemical dimension with the lake, as the source of the Nile, being
connected to the interior of a mountain which is depicted as a subterranean crucible. Beyond
this crucible of alchemy is the ‘Buro mina de Oro’ - the mine of gold. The Mountains of the
Moon, the Montes Lunae, are located in Sofala or Zufala confirming their southern African
location.

The map illustrates Kircher’s theory of Hydrographia in which water flows underground through
chasms which it enters via huge abysses. These underground reservoirs feed the Nile as it
traverses the continent towards its delta. The antiquity of this theory is demonstrated by Pliny’s
description of the Nile as flowing partly underground.

The application of this theory to the Victoria Falls is a perfect synthesis of form and concept. The
Zambezi widens into a large ‘lake’ before plunging over a mile-long abyss with the water now
propelled into a deep and narrow gorge. The churning water in this deep abyss can be
compared to Kircher’s concept of huge abysses that funnel water into underground reservoirs.

By the time of Kircher’s map the Portuguese had already started creating forts and settlements
on the Zambezi on its navigable extent up to the Lupata Gorge. The idea that they would have
been uninterested in the mysterious lake that maps were depicting upriver and as the source of
the Nile is untenable. Maps dating before the official discovery of the falls document the
presence of this lake on the upper Zambezi, corresponding to the wide expanse of the Zambezi
as it broadens out before plunging over the falls into a narrow canyon. The location of the lake
in these maps suggests that oral reports were circulating at this time of an extraordinary
phenomenon on the Zambezi that could be equated with the source of the Nile.
Biblical accounts of the Nile stretching across most of the continent of Ethiopia, as Africa was
termed, drove a religious imperative to discover the source of the Nile which Ptolemy had
placed substantially south of the equator. Hence the universal river, or one of the biblical four
rivers of Eden, extends deep into southern Africa. The religious nature of the quest is paralleled
by the Jesuit influence in this region.

Athanasius Kircher was an influential Jesuit with access to their archives in Rome. In 1561 the
Jesuit missionary Gonzalo da Silveira was martyred by the ‘Monomotapa’ in an area near the
Zambezi in contemporary northern Zimbabwe or the border region. It is believed that the
martyrdom was under the direction of Swahili traders protecting the gold trade. The notorious
nature of the incident and the fact that it was witnessed by a literate Portuguese trader, Antonio
Caiado, meant that documentation was sent to Rome of which Kircher would have been aware.
The martyrdom is evidence of the competing imperatives of Jesuit missionaries and Swahili gold
traders deep in the interior of southern Africa in the sixteenth century.

Kircher’s own documentation of the map is based on the concepts of the ‘Fountain’s of the Nile.’
He draws on a section of text from Pedro Paez, a fellow Jesuit, which describes a mountain with
an interior containing a reservoir of water. This text comes under the title of the ‘Fountains of
Abyssinia’ in which could be discoverd the source of the Blue Nile. The source of the Blue Nile in
contemporary Ethiopia cannot however be conflated with the White Nile that extends into the
continental interior. Kircher therefore clearly aimed to locate the mythical source of the White
Nile, the primary branch of the Nile, which is identified as one of the four rivers of the biblical
Eden.

In Kircher’s documentation of the text of Pedro Paez there is a reference to the second chapter
of Genesis indicating a religious, other than a purely scientific, motivation for the pursuit of the
Nile’s source. In this context the Nile is one of the four rivers that ultimately represent the
primary river of the Garden of Eden.
“Among the great and universally celebrated the river Nile presents itself in the first place,
which was not a subject of admiration only among ancient and modern sages and the most
respectable authors, but of which even the Sacred Scripture makes frequent mention. In
Genesis, chapter ii it is called Gehon, one of the four rivers of paradise.” 9

This identification appears to be drawn from Josephus, the first century Jewish historian, who
states that the biblical Geon (or Gihon) is the Nile. “Now the garden (of Eden) was watered by
one river, which ran round about the whole earth, and was parted into four parts… and Geon
runs through Egypt, and denotes what arises from the east, which the Greeks call Nile.” 10

The biblical river encompasses the whole land of Ethiopia, or the known southern extent of the
east side of the African continent: “... that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia…” The New
International Bible has ‘Ethiopia’ of the Saint James Bible translated as ‘Cush.’ “A river watering
the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters… The name of
the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush.”11

It is from the biblical rivers of Genesis that al-Mas’udi draws inspiration when he describes a
branch of the Nile leaving the Upper Nile and flowing into the Mozambique Channel. The
location is established by his reference to Sofala. This maximalist Nile encircles the entire
eastern section of the African continent down to the region of Sofala which he describes as the
limit of the Arab trading routes. Ptolemy is believed to have derived the myth of the Mountains
of the Moon from Arab sources giving this tenth century Arab text an overarching significance.
Al-Mas’udi describes this maximalist Nile as traversing the entire extent of the African continent
down to the Sofala region where the branch flows into the sea.

This interpretation of the text of al-Mas’udi is confirmed by a section of text that describes
sailors on the sea of Zanj or Mozambique Channel describing the Zambezi delta of the Nile
having an appearance reflecting the inundation in Egypt. This change in the character of the
Zambezi delta coincided with the time of year of the Egyptian inundation. Al-Mas’udi is in fact
referring to the dry season of the Zambezi where the delta becomes a vast area of sediment and
silt reminiscent of the sediment that fertilized the fields of Egypt after the inundation. 12

The identification of the Zambezi as a branch of the Nile required a central lake from which both
rivers emerged travelling in different directions, one to the north and the Egyptian delta, and
the other to a delta on the Mozambique coast. At the centre of the convergence existed a lake
which cartographers began to draw on maps that now in the modern era can be seen to be in
the vicinity of the Victoria Falls.

It is likely that ancient oral transmission communicated the existence of the falls for centuries,
or even millennia, before their ‘discovery’ in the nineteenth century. If not the scientific source
of the Nile, which in itself is indescribably mundane, the true mythical source becomes the
greatest waterfall on the planet. This explains the human fascination with the source that
stretches back into the biblical era.

The primal myth of the source of the Nile, and the associated location of the Mountains of the
Moon, represents a deep undercurrent in the human consciousness. As such it cannot be
superficially conflated with the scientific source of the Nile.

One of the characteristics that unites the falls and the ancient Nile is the concept of the
inundation. The falls flood during the period when the rains are at their maximum extent after
which the deluge recedes revealing the massive canyon. Thus there is a parallel phenomenon of
a continuous cycle of flood or inundation and withdrawal into the deep recesses of the earth.

“Timaeus the mathematician has alleged a reason of an occult nature: he says that the source
of the river (Nile) is known by the name Phiala, and that the stream buries itself in channels
underground, where it sends forth vapours generated by the heat among the steaming rocks
amid which it conceals itself; but that, during the days of the inundation, in consequence of the
sun approaching nearer to the earth, the waters are drawn forth by the influence of his heat,
and on being thus exposed to the air, overflow; after which, in order that it may not be utterly
dried up, the stream hides itself once more.”13

gihon - Hebrew - 'bursting forth, gushing'

1. Pliny - Natural History 5.10.55-57

2. Ptolemy - Geography - c. 150 CE
3. Ibid.
4. Pausanias - Description of Greece 2.5.3
5. Genesis 2:10
6. al-Mas'udi - Meadows of Gold - 916 CE
7. Joao dos Santos - Ethiopia Oriental - 1609 CE
8. Pausanias - Description of Greece 2.5.3
9. James Bruce - Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - 1790 CE
10. Josephus - Antiquities of the Jews 1.1.3
11. Genesis 2:10
12. al-Mas'udi - Meadows of Gold
13. Pliny - Natural History 5.10.55-57