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The village where they had halted was, however, built upon the ground; but was surrounded by a strong stockade. The people assured Stanley that none of the fugitives from Mophi had come that way. There had, they said, been many, after Bandoola's defeat; but they had seen none, of late.
This was probably "native information," concerning the cataracts of the Nile and a long space above them, which had already been enlarged by others into two hills with sharp conical tops called Crophi and Mophi midway between which lay the fountains of the Nile fountains which it was impossible to fathom, and which gave forth half their water to Ethiopia in the south, and the other half to Egypt in the north: that which these men failed to find, and that which many great minds in ancient times longed to know, has in this late age been brought to light by the patient toil and laborious perseverance of Englishmen.
The names of these mountains are the one Crophi, the other Mophi; that the sources of the Nile, which are bottomless, flow from between these mountains and that half of the water flows over Egypt and to the north, the other half over Ethiopia and the south.
Then she seemed to me to be jesting, like that scribe who told me of Krophi and Mophi; for Rhodopis lived in the days of King Amasis and of Sappho the minstrel, and was beloved by Charaxus, the brother of Sappho, wherefore Sappho reviled him in a song. How then could Rhodopis, who flourished more than a hundred years before my time, be living yet?
Meinik was quite of opinion that there would be no risk, whatever, in passing through villages; but thought it probable that they might fall in with disbanded troops, as it was known that the land column had, soon after starting, captured the fort of Mophi; and that its garrison, between two and three thousand strong, had taken to the jungle and dispersed.
To me however this man seemed not to be speaking seriously when he said that he had certain knowledge of it; and he said as follows, namely that there were two mountains of which the tops ran up to a sharp point, situated between the city of Syene, which is in the district of Thebes, and Elephantine, and the names of the mountains were, of the one Crophi and of the other Mophi.
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