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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: desired sight of the sources of the Nile.
But this discovery was reserved for the invincible bravery of our
noble countrymen, who, not discouraged by the dangers of a
navigation in seas never explored before, have subdued kingdoms and
empires where the Greek and Roman greatness, where the names of
Caesar and Alexander, were never heard of; who have demolished the
airy fabrics of renowned hypotheses, and detected those fables which
the ancients rather chose to invent of the sources of the Nile than
to confess their ignorance. I cannot help suspending my narration
to reflect a little on the ridiculous speculations of those swelling
philosophers, whose arrogance would prescribe laws to nature, and
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