Page:A voyage to Abyssinia (Salt).djvu/148

 the fox, a small dog, and the rack, "an olive-tree." "In mari vero rubro sylvas vivere, laurum maxime et olivam ferentem baccas:"—"caniculis refertas vix ut prospicere è navi tutum sit, remos plerunque ipsos invadentibus." It is worthy of observation, that the leaves of the rack, though exceedingly bitter and acrid to the taste, form the chief support of the numerous droves of camels kept on the coast, which, from this circumstance, are esteemed more stout and capable of bearing fatigue, than any others fed in a different manner.

The supply of water on this coast depends upon a number of wells, rudely hollowed out by the natives. Those immediately in the neighbourhood of the villages are fit for use only during a short time after the rains have fallen, being at other periods dry or impregnated with salt water. The best wells are found on Amphila Point, about six miles east by south from the harbour, which afford a sufficient quantity of water for the supply of a fleet; but they are not very convenient, on account of their lying at the distance of nearly three-quarters of a mile from the beach. These reservoirs are excavated to the depth of twelve and fourteen feet from the surface, but we never observed the water in them to rise more than one foot from the bottom; so that in filling a large cask it often became exhausted, and occasioned a delay until a fresh supply had trickled in again from the sides. It frequently happened that the water was salt in one well, and fresh in another, though not lying more than ten or twelve yards asunder. This variation in the quality of the water seemed to depend in a great measure upon the height of the tide, as it was found that the salt water predominated at the flowing of the spring, and the fresh water during the prevalence of the neap tides. This circumstance favours the supposition, that the sea, when at its highest elevation, rises above the level of some of