Note 8 — Chapter I

Since the above was written, I have seen, in Captain Speke's "Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile," the map of Eastern Equatorial Africa, which accompanied a paper, published in the third volume of "Asiatic Researches, in 1801." Speke, referring to this paper, says:—"It was written by Lieutenant Wilford, from the 'Purans' of the ancient Hindus.... It is remarkable that the Hindus have christened the source of the Nile Amara, which is the name of a country at the north-east corner of the Victoria N'yanza. This, I think, shows clearly, that the ancient Hindus must have had some kind of communication with both the northern and southern ends of the Victoria N'yanza." I find on this map, on the west side of the inland sea styled "Lake of Amara or of the Gods," a range of hills named "Sitanta Mts." They are in close contiguity to the "Soma Giri" or "Mountains of the Moon," and seem to be a lower or inferior branch of that range, bordering upon the waters of the great lake. This appears to be a further confirmation of the high probability which exists that some of the very ancient local nomenclature of Britain and Western Europe is of Eastern origin. Ptolemy speaks not only of a people inhabiting the district of which Lancashire forms a part, which he names the Setantii, but of a harbour on the coast, the Portus Setantiorum, which I and others have fixed at the Wyre. [See "History of Preston and its Environs." p. 36.]